Obesity is a major challenge to public health in the UK, with wide-ranging effects on people’s health, wellbeing and ability to work. For some, bariatric surgery, also known as weight loss surgery, can be life changing. At the Office for National Statistics (ONS), we looked at people’s employment status and monthly pay. By linking data from different sources, we found that this kind of surgery increased the chance of people returning to work or staying in employment.
We completed this study using the Public Health Data Asset (PHDA), which links:
- de-identified records from NHS hospital admissions
- data from the 2011 census and Census 2021
- HM Revenue and Customs payroll data
- ONS birth and death registrations
We handled the data so that all personal information remained anonymous but made sure that the insights from it could be used to inform important policy decisions. No one can be identified from the data, and it’s only used for research and creating statistics.
Bariatric surgery helps people return to work
This study looked at people in England who had bariatric surgery between April 2014 and December 2022. It compared their employment and earnings in the six months before surgery with their employment and earnings up to five years after.
We found that, on average, people were more likely to be in paid employment from four months after surgery. This increase continued in the five years that followed. By the end of that period, the chance of being in work was 4.3 percentage points higher than before surgery.
This rise in employment meant that the overall average increase in monthly earnings went up by £84 per month, five years after surgery. However, among those people in work, there was little change in pay levels. This suggests the main benefit of the surgery was in helping people return to or stay in employment, rather than boosting their earnings or the hours they worked.
Evidence to help tackle long-term illness and obesity
This work is part of a wider ONS programme exploring the relationship between health and the labour market. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, long-term sickness has become a rising cause of people not working or looking for work. Understanding how health interventions like bariatric surgery influence people’s ability to work is vital for shaping effective policies and support services.
The findings are particularly relevant when it comes to current debates around obesity, employment and economic growth. They offer new evidence that weight loss can also improve people’s chances of working and earning, benefiting individuals, families and the wider economy.
The findings were also critical to the decision behind the UK Government allocating approximately £45 million to NHS England’s Health and Growth Accelerators programme in 2024. This is being piloted in three areas with high levels of economic inactivity.
Highlighting barriers to support funding for health services
This study was made possible by securely linking de-identified health and tax data. By using data in this way, we’re helping to shine a light on the barriers people face in the labour market and how targeted health interventions can help remove them. People have already used this evidence to make important decisions and support funding for services that may help people return to or remain in work.
Studies like these also help to give a fuller understanding and appreciation of the overall value of health interventions, which could lead to greater investment in healthcare.
This study is also part of a wider ONS programme examining the employment effects of healthcare interventions. Similar analyses of the NHS Talking Therapies programme, endometriosis diagnosis, and musculo-skeletal treatments have also been published. These studies show how linking different datasets can answer important questions about public services that would otherwise be impossible to investigate.
To find out more, read The impact of bariatric surgery on monthly employee pay and employee status, England: April 2014 to December 2022.
This project was funded by the UK Government’s Labour Markets Evaluation and Pilots Fund - 2024 to 2025.