Here are the results of our ITSM Well-being in 2025 survey. In early Q1 2025, we reran our State of Well-being in ITSM survey. It was last run in early 2024 to see how people in IT service management (ITSM) roles felt about work, and these results are used in this article for comparison purposes. For 2025, we’ve also kept the artificial intelligence (AI)-focused questions (introduced in 2024) to see its impact on people working in ITSM roles.
The ITSM Well-being in 2025 survey was promoted via multiple social media channels, including the Back2ITSM Facebook group. It was a slow process, though, with only 76 survey responses versus the 150 received in 2024 and 133 in 2022. Whether this lower level of response is due to well-being indifference, survey fatigue, a dislike of ITSM.tools, or something else is unknown.
Please note – as with all “focused” surveys, there will likely be an element of survey bias caused by the attraction of people interested in the topic versus those who aren’t.
Q1. Do you think working in corporate IT will get harder over the next three years?
The ITSM Well-being in 2025 survey results are shown in the table below, along with the 2024 responses.
| Response | 2025 Percentage | 2024 Percentage | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Not sure | 3% | 3% | - |
| No | 8% | 15% | -7 |
| Yes, for some IT roles | 41% | 41% | - |
| Yes, for all IT roles | 49% | 41% | +8 |
(Rounding errors are the cause of totals not always being 100%)
90% of respondents think working in IT will get harder, with only 8% thinking not. These figures are up on 2024 and a return to the 2022 survey results of 88% and 8%, respectively (there wasn’t a 2023 well-being survey).
Q2. Do you feel your personal efforts, and your value to the business, are sufficiently recognized by management?
The 2025 well-being survey results are shown in the table below, along with the 2024 responses.
| Response | 2025 Percentage | 2024 Percentage | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Don’t know | 0% | 2% | -2 |
| No | 25% | 30% | -5 |
| Sometimes, but not enough | 55% | 39% | +16 |
| Yes | 20% | 29% | -9 |
25% of survey respondents don’t feel their personal efforts are recognized by management, and another 55% state that recognition sometimes happens but not enough – a total of 80%. This figure is higher than the 69% reported in the 2024 survey. If we convert the total percentage into people, eight out of ten IT employees feel underappreciated. The drop in “No” responses is relatively encouraging, but this shouldn’t distract from the 80% figure.
Unlike in 2022 and 2024, I’m not going to run the correlations for the 2025 survey data because I still believe the following correlation exists – that well-being issues and the lack of personal recognition are strongly linked (as are well-being and the future view of work).
Q3. Do you feel that working in IT is adversely affecting your personal well-being?
The ITSM Well-being in 2025 survey results are shown in the table below, along with the 2024 responses.
| Response | 2025 Percentage | 2024 Percentage | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| What’s “well-being”? | 0% | 0% | - |
| Don’t know/not really thought about it | 3% | 5% | -2 |
| No | 24% | 35% | -11 |
| Yes, in some ways | 57% | 48% | +9 |
| Yes, considerably | 17% | 13% | +4 |
74% of respondents state working in IT has adversely affected their well-being to some extent. This figure is higher than the 61% reported in 2024. 24% haven’t experienced well-being issues, down from 35% in 2024. Again, this is closer to the 2022 survey results.
It seems crazy to think that close to three-quarters of the people working in ITSM roles believe they have suffered from well-being-related issues.
Q4. Do you think that your immediate manager is suitably skilled to identify and deal with employee well-being issues?
The 2025 well-being survey results are shown in the table below, along with the 2024 responses.
| Response | 2025 Percentage | 2024 Percentage | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| What’s “well-being”? | 0% | 1% | -1 |
| Don’t know/not really thought about it | 7% | 4% | +3 |
| No | 36% | 37% | -1 |
| Yes, but only partially | 33% | 28% | +5 |
| Yes | 25% | 30% | -5 |
Sadly, this still isn’t an improvement on the 2024 well-being data. There’s a 5% decrease in respondents who think their immediate manager is suitably skilled to identify and deal with employee well-being issues. Conversely, 36% of respondents believe their managers are not suitably skilled, and another 33% think they’re only partially skilled.
So worryingly, seven out of ten employees think their line manager isn’t fully able to identify and deal with employee well-being issues.
Q5. Does your organization have suitable mechanisms for preventing and helping with employee well-being issues?
The ITSM Well-being in 2025 survey results are shown in the table below, along with the 2024 responses.
| Response | 2025 Percentage | 2024 Percentage | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| What’s “well-being”? | 0% | 1% | -1 |
| Don’t know/not really thought about it | 3% | 7% | -4 |
| No | 30% | 27% | +3 |
| Yes, but they need improving | 43% | 34% | +9 |
| Yes | 25% | 32% | -7 |
Once again, respondents have marginally more trust in corporate well-being capabilities than their line managers’ abilities. 25% of respondents believe their corporate well-being mechanisms are suitable, and another 43% believe they are suitable but need improvement.
Q6. Do corporate (rather than personal) AI capabilities help with your work?
The 2025 well-being survey results are shown in the table below, along with the 2024 responses.
| Response | 2025 Percentage | 2024 Percentage | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| There are no corporate AI capabilities | 21% | 19% | +2 |
| I currently don’t use corporate AI capabilities | 26% | 35% | -9 |
| Yes, they help | 40% | 17% | +23 |
| No, they don’t help | 7% | 19% | -12 |
| Don’t know | 3% | 9% | -6 |
| Other | 4% | 2% | +2 |
However, as with the 2024 survey data, we can’t tell whether the AI capabilities used are part of existing corporate applications (such as ITSM tools) or bespoke AI applications. Similarly, caution should be applied to the “There are no corporate AI capabilities” and “I currently don’t use corporate AI capabilities” options. For example, the first option might be due to a lack of knowledge, and the second might include responses that should have been the “There are no corporate AI capabilities” option.
However, we can tell that the split between the 47% of respondents who state they use AI-based capabilities is no longer close (as in 2024). 40% now report that the AI-based capabilities help, and only 7% that they don’t. Focusing solely on these two data points, this is 85% positive versus only 15% negative.
Q7. Have you used non-corporate (personally sourced) AI tools, such as ChatGPT, to help with your work?
The 2025 well-being survey results are shown in the table below, along with the 2024 responses.
| Response | 2025 Percentage | 2024 Percentage | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| No | 17% | 31% | -14 |
| Yes, and they helped | 71% | 57% | +14 |
| Yes, but they didn’t help | 12% | 9% | +3 |
| Don’t know | 0% | 1% | -1 |
| Other | 0% | 1% | -1 |
The ITSM Well-being in 2025 survey data shows that 83% of respondents have used non-corporate AI tools to help with their work, with 86% (of these) finding it helpful (which is oddly the same (rounded) percentage as 2024). Unfortunately, it’s only with the benefit of hindsight that I’ve realized that this question should have been timeboxed to instead ask, “Have you used non-corporate (personally sourced) AI tools, such as ChatGPT, to help with your work in the last 12 months?”
Q8. Has the use of AI (corporate or personal) improved your well-being?
The 2025 well-being survey results are shown in the table below, along with the 2024 responses.
| Response | 2025 Percentage | 2024 Percentage | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yes | 33% | 15% | +18 |
| No change | 45% | 41% | +4 |
| No, AI has adversely affected my well-being | 4% | 6% | -2 |
| Not used it, but I’ve no concerns | 7% | 18% | -11 |
| Not used it, but I’ve concerns | 5% | 11% | -6 |
| Don’t know | 4% | 8% | -4 |
| Other | 3% | 2% | +1 |
As with the 2024 data, this final question requires further analysis to understand respondent perspectives. For example, was the adverse effect on well-being caused by introducing corporate AI capabilities, using free AI tools, or unknown future changes?
There are again two key insights, though. First, the 45% of respondents for whom AI hasn’t changed their well-being, 33% for whom it has improved well-being (up from 15%), and 4% that have had issues. Second, for the 13% of respondents who haven’t used AI-based capabilities yet, 7% have no concerns, but 5% do. The difference between the perspectives of those who have used AI and those who haven’t is significant.
Hopefully, these ITSM Well-being in 2025 survey data points are helpful despite the smaller sample size this year. In my opinion, the level of well-being issues in ITSM is still a concern and worse than in 2024. I’d have thought the industry would have tackled this by now. The AI-related data points look promising, but my gut is telling me that it’s still probably too early to know the full impact of AI on well-being. So, let’s do this again next year.
If you found this data useful, please take our latest Ai in ITSM survey, thanks.
Stephen Mann
Principal Analyst and Content Director at the ITSM-focused industry analyst firm ITSM.tools. Also an independent IT and IT service management marketing content creator, and a frequent blogger, writer, and presenter on the challenges and opportunities for IT service management professionals.
Previously held positions in IT research and analysis (at IT industry analyst firms Ovum and Forrester and the UK Post Office), IT service management consultancy, enterprise IT service desk and IT service management, IT asset management, innovation and creativity facilitation, project management, finance consultancy, internal audit, and product marketing for a SaaS IT service management technology vendor.
