Third Sector Trends in England and Wales 2025: People, work, ambition and impact

The third sector in England and Wales employs about 1.15 million people, constituting an average of 3.1% of employment. It is estimated that this represents a small increase of around 25,000 full-time equivalent employees nationally since 2022. The full cost of employees to voluntary organisations is estimated at £43.7bn which represents around 67% of total organisational expenditure.

Third Sector Trends estimates the number of ‘regular’ volunteers upon whom TSOs can rely to provide practical hands-on support to achieve social impact.

In England and Wales, regular volunteers number around 4.3 million people who contribute 308 million hours of work valued at between £3.8bn (at National Minimum Wage) and £5.6bn (at 80% median wage) in 2025.

Many TSOs have seen regular volunteer numbers increase over the last two years, but 38% report that they have yet to recover volunteer numbers to pre-pandemic levels. This strongly suggests a substantive decline in numbers of regular volunteers from 4.7m to 4.3m in England and Wales since 2022.

That represents a fall of around 22,500 full-time equivalent regular volunteers. Reliance on regular volunteers Third Sector Trends only assesses ‘regular volunteering’ because voluntary organisations need to plan and practice their work with a clear idea about the people resources they can reliably draw upon.

Read the full report here.