Tide's 2026 survey of 500 UK business owners found that one in six take no days off at all, and the average founder manages just fifteen days a year. This includes practices like yours.
Practices are usually built by people who forget to switch off, and that habit tends to surface later as burnout, snappy decisions, or a very tired face on the intake form.
| Original Research | Tide surveyed 500 UK founders and found most take drastically less leave than their own employees are legally entitled to. |
|---|---|
| Source | https://www.tide.co/blog/tide-update/the-holiday-gap/ |
| Overview | The report tracks how little annual leave UK business owners actually take, part of Tide's ongoing Business Benchmark Index, published by the business banking company itself. |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publisher | Brand, Tide |
| Relevance to Wellbeing | Wellbeing practice owners are business owners too, and this data suggests they're just as likely to skip the rest they'd happily prescribe to a client. |
| Our Verdict | Too early to tell The sample is decent and the finding is plausible, but it's Tide's own research about business owners generally, not wellbeing practices specifically. |
| Our Summary |
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| Our Geo View | Applies broadly, but the statutory leave comparison is a UK employment law reference and won't translate directly to other jurisdictions. |
Tide reports that around a million UK business owners take no annual leave at all, and that the average founder gets by on fifteen days a year.
Tide, published 2026 as part of the Business Benchmark Index.
Credibility flags: sample of 500 UK business owners disclosed; survey methodology beyond that not spelled out; publisher is a business bank with a clear interest in the founder wellbeing conversation.
A relevance score out of 100, built from three things: how well it fits the six practice types, how recent it is, and how solid the methodology behind it is.
Marked down on how solid the method is, since it's brand-commissioned without full methodology disclosure, but the decent sample size and strong recency kept the overall relevance score from sinking further, even though practice fit is general rather than wellbeing-specific.
| Practice type | Relevance | Recommended action |
|---|---|---|
| Coaching | High | Use the stat to talk openly about rest as part of the coaching offer, not an afterthought. |
| Therapy | High | Flag it in supervision or peer discussion as a professional risk worth naming out loud. |
| Training | Medium | Build recovery days into your own schedule before you build them into a client programme. |
| Alternative Healing | Medium | Let your booking page show real closed days, not just implied availability. |
| Clinical | High | Review caseload cover so leave doesn't quietly disappear from the diary. |
| Retreat/Centre | Medium | Make sure the person running the retreat is also, occasionally, on one. |
Best before: worth revisiting when Tide publishes its next Business Benchmark Index, likely in 2027, or sooner by checking the current figures directly at Tide.
Most practice owners will recognise the fifteen-day founder before they recognise themselves in the mirror.
That instinct to keep reading - it's the same one that makes a good practitioner. We've built a story garden, a visual river and a listening wind for exactly that kind of person. Come and find out what we mean over a proper coffee.
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