Employee confidence has reached a 12 month high as a report suggests that 36 percent of UK employees now feel confident they could find a new job within six months.

This confidence is highest amongst 25-34 year olds (46 percent) but falls to less than a quarter of those over 55 years of age (24 percent). People who  are unemployed are also feeling better about the prospect of finding work in the next six months (36 percent), a sentiment which has grown by two percentage points in the last quarter.

This increase in job seeker confidence is supported by improved job security in the workplace. Overall, the number of employees fearful of redundancy in the next six months has fallen by eight percentage points from 35 percent in Q4 2014 to 27 percent in the last three months. Concern for co-workers job security is slightly higher (37 percent) but this figure has also fallen significantly in the last quarter by six percentage points.

Jon Ingham, Glassdoor career and workplace expert comments: “Recent reports of a brighter economic outlook in the UK are fully reflected in our employee confidence survey this quarter. Employees are starting to feel far more confident with both their current job and the prospect of finding a new one. This has been a long time coming but it seems the job market has finally turned a corner.”

“Employers have had the upper hand in recent years, offering little in the way of salary increases and promotion. They have been safe in the knowledge that the job market has made it difficult for employees to move on. However, the power is starting to shift which is great for those employees that have been forced to put their career progression on hold over the past few years as they now have greater bargaining power. Competition is high in the job market but the important thing is that employees are moving and this increased level of activity creates more opportunities.”

Employee expectations of a pay rise in the next six months have remained fairly stable at around 35 percent for the past year. However, when it comes to gender and pay, it seems men (40 percent) are far more optimistic than women (30 percent) about receiving a pay boost.

For employees whose company had made negative changes in the workplace over the past quarter, 30 percent said that their employer had reduced pay or bonuses, down from 36 percent in Q4. Just 12 percent of those surveyed claim their organisation had communicated a pay freeze in the last six months, a figure which has fallen steadily over the past year from 19 percent.

Interestingly, for employees whose company had made positive changes in the workplace over the past quarter, 45 percent said that employers had awarded new company benefits, such as remote or flexible working. Overall, more than one in three (36 percent) employees feel their organisation’s outlook will be better in the next six months or stay the same (55 percent).