The Mortgage Industry Mental Health Charter (MIMHC) has revealed the state of mental health across the industry as it shares the findings of its Mental Health and Wellbeing Survey 2023.

The survey aims to understand the mortgage industry’s current well-being, and importantly, highlights the key areas in which mental health provision needs to improve.

It found that brokers are overworked. 46% now work between 45/60 hours which is up from 42%. 12% of respondents still maintain that they are working more than 60 hours weekly.

Brokers aren’t getting enough sleep, the survey found.18% don’t get enough sleep on any night of the week – a fall from 27% last year. Only 7% are sleeping like babies every night of the week, up just 2% on 2022.

Meanwhile, there is no change to professional contentment. 44% are still disillusioned/moderately happy with their situation. The majority (56%) are happy with their role.

A happy relationship with partner remains the top selection and increases from 65% to 69% in 2023. Enough sleep and rest overtakes financial independence in 2nd place this year with fitness and diet coming in 3rd to emphasise a more personal well-being focus in 2023. (Sleep and rest had been 3rd in 2022)

MIMHC said that wellbeing is improving. 16% of respondents believe their mental health is ‘poor’ or ‘of concern’.  This is markedly down from a 23% result in 2022 but continues to highlight the need to support individuals in our sector. At the opposite end the extremes in our sector are again highlighted with 44% of people feeling good/excellent compared to 41% in 2022.

In addition, work-life balance is also improving. Although a blend is still evident, hybrid working is up to 37% from 27% in 2022 and nearly one in four respondents now work permanently from home. As a result, 17% think their work/life balance has improved – up from 8% last year. Only 24% believe it has worsened which is down from 30% in 2022.

That said, respondents said not enough companies offer mental health support. 58% of companies provide brokers with support – up from 54% last year. But 42% don’t – demonstrating there is still a long way to go to normalise mental health provision in the mortgage industry.

Brokers are also not seeing an improvement in workplace mental health provision. 46% have seen an improvement but 54% haven’t – compared to 51% in 2022.

The full report is available to read here https://mimhc.co.uk/mimhc-mental-health-wellbeing-survey-report-2023

Jason Berry, group sales director at Crystal Specialist Finance and co-founder of MIMHC, said: “Overall levels of contentment remain similar to 2022 and frustratingly suggest only marginal progress has been made. MIMHC’s main aim over the last 12 months has been to encourage companies to incept mental health or well-being initiatives and although it is encouraging to see 58% of respondents now indicate something is in place, the results continue to demonstrate our sector has a lot of work to do. Too many people continue to suffer in silence with zero support.”