NHS England’s 2024 workforce data show that just 5.7% of trust staff have a disability recorded on the HR system, while 25.05% of NHS Staff Survey respondents say they live with a physical or mental health condition lasting 12 months or more. That gap of roughly 4.4 to 1 (25.05 divided by 5.7) is the clearest public measurement of how much non-obvious disability never reaches an employer’s records. In the US, more than 1 in 4 adults have a disability (CDC), cognition is the single most common type at 13.9%, and the employment-population ratio for people with a disability was only 22.8% in 2025 versus 65.2% for everyone else (BLS). We aggregated data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the CDC, NHS England, the EEOC, the UK Cabinet Office, the Job Accommodation Network, the Department of Labor, and peer-reviewed studies in JAMA Network Open and other journals. For the accommodation side of the story, see our companion roundup on workplace accommodation statistics.
TL;DR
- 5.7% of NHS trust staff declared a disability on the Electronic Staff Record in 2024, versus 25.05% reporting a long-term condition in the staff survey (NHS England, WDES 2024).
- More than 1 in 4 US adults have a disability, and cognition (13.9%) is the most common type (CDC Disability and Health Data System 2024).
- 15.5 million US adults (6.0%) have a current ADHD diagnosis, and 55.9% were diagnosed at age 18 or older (CDC MMWR 2024).
- 7.23% of US federal employees had a “not identified” disability status in FY 2021, up from 4.07% in FY 2016 (EEOC, Annual Report on the Federal Workforce FY 2021).
- 17.9% of UK civil servants with a known status declare a disability, double the 8.9% of 2015 (Cabinet Office, Civil Service Statistics 2025).
- Only 2.6% of US physicians reported a disability in the 2022 National Sample Survey of Physicians (Sheets et al., JAMA Network Open 2026).
- 50.6% of first-year resident physicians who needed accommodations did not request them, and 59.5% of those cited fear of stigma (Pereira-Lima et al., JAMA Network Open 2023).
- 35.5% of workers with a disability and a work-limiting condition had ever requested a workplace change (BLS, Barriers to Employment, July 2024 data).
- 61% of accommodations cost employers nothing (Job Accommodation Network, 2019-2024 survey).
- Disabled NHS staff were 2.04 times as likely as non-disabled staff to enter a formal capability process (NHS England, WDES 2024).
- ADA charges reached 36,256 in FY 2025, 41.1% of all EEOC charges (EEOC Enforcement and Litigation Statistics FY 2025).
- Form CC-305, the federal contractor disability self-ID form, is discontinued effective September 21, 2026 (DOL OFCCP 2026).
1. How Much Disability Is Non-Obvious
The prevalence data explain why disclosure matters at all. The most common type of disability among US adults is cognitive (13.9%), not mobility (12.2%), and hearing, vision and ADHD rarely announce themselves in an office (CDC, Disability Impacts All of Us). For employers, that means the majority of disability in a white-collar workforce is something a manager will only learn about if the employee decides to say so.
ADHD alone is a useful scale marker: 6.0% of US adults have a current diagnosis, and more than half received that diagnosis as adults, often after they were already employed (CDC MMWR, October-November 2023 survey). Labor-market data show the stakes. People with a disability made up about 13% of the US population in 2025, their unemployment rate was 8.3% versus 4.1%, and about 30% of employed people with a disability usually worked part time versus 17% of those without one (BLS, Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics 2025).
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| US adults with any disability | More than 1 in 4 | CDC Disability and Health Data System (updated July 2024) |
| US adults with a cognition disability | 13.9% | CDC Disability and Health Data System (updated July 2024) |
| US adults with a mobility disability | 12.2% | CDC Disability and Health Data System (updated July 2024) |
| US adults with a hearing disability | 6.2% | CDC Disability and Health Data System (updated July 2024) |
| US adults with a vision disability | 5.5% | CDC Disability and Health Data System (updated July 2024) |
| US adults with a current ADHD diagnosis | 6.0% (15.5 million) | CDC MMWR, NCHS Rapid Surveys System 2023 |
| Adults with ADHD diagnosed at age 18 or older | 55.9% | CDC MMWR, NCHS Rapid Surveys System 2023 |
| People worldwide experiencing significant disability | 1.3 billion (16%, or 1 in 6) | WHO Disability and Health fact sheet 2023 |
Context: the CDC (more than 1 in 4 adults) and WHO (16% worldwide) figures use different definitions, so they should not be compared directly. Hearing loss is a good example of a condition that is both common and invisible; see our roundup on hidden hearing loss and synaptopathy.
2. The Disclosure Gap: HR Records vs Anonymous Surveys
The NHS publishes the rare dataset that measures the same workforce two ways. 5.7% of NHS trust staff (86,312 people) had a disability declared on the Electronic Staff Record in 2024, while 25.05% of NHS Staff Survey respondents reported a condition lasting 12 months or more (NHS England, Workforce Disability Equality Standard 2024). The two questions are not identical, since a long-term condition is not automatically a disability, but the size of the gap is the point: what employees say anonymously and what they put in an HR file are very different numbers.
The trend is moving the right way. The declared rate rose from 3.1% in 2018, and the share of staff with an unknown or undeclared status fell from 25.4% to 14.3%. Leadership disclosure is now slightly ahead of the workforce, with 6.5% of board members declaring a disability. NHS England has since published the WDES 2025 data analysis report (first published April 7, 2026, as a data workbook).
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| NHS trust staff with a disability declared on ESR (2024) | 5.7% (86,312 people) | NHS England, WDES 2024 |
| NHS trust staff with a disability declared on ESR (2018) | 3.1% | NHS England, WDES 2024 |
| Staff survey respondents with a condition lasting 12+ months | 25.05% | NHS England, WDES 2024 (NHS Staff Survey) |
| Staff with unknown or undeclared disability status (2024) | 14.3% | NHS England, WDES 2024 |
| Staff with unknown or undeclared disability status (2018) | 25.4% | NHS England, WDES 2024 |
| NHS trust board members declaring a disability (March 2024) | 6.5% | NHS England, WDES 2024 |
3. Public-Sector Self-ID Benchmarks in the US and UK
Government employers are the best-documented large workforces, and both the US and UK data show the same tension: declared disability rises when organizations ask repeatedly, but the “unknown” bucket never disappears. In the US federal workforce, the share with a “not identified” disability status rose from 4.07% in FY 2016 to 7.23% in FY 2021, even as the self-identified disability rate climbed to 10.51% (EEOC, Annual Report on the Federal Workforce FY 2021, Part 2). Most recent available data: EEOC, FY 2021. The Section 501 goal is 12% participation for persons with disabilities (EEOC, Retaining Persons with Disabilities in the Federal Workforce), and FY 2021 was the first year the government reached its 2% goal for targeted disabilities.
Seniority matters. Disability representation falls from 13.55% at GS 1-10 to 8.33% in the Senior Executive Service, which is consistent with the pattern that disclosure (or retention) thins out toward the top. In the UK, 17.9% of civil servants with a known status declare a disability, the same as the economically active working-age population (Cabinet Office, Civil Service Statistics 2025). Yet in the pay gap population, a quarter of records (5.2% actively undeclared plus 19.8% unknown, 25.0% combined) carry no disability status (Civil Service Disability Pay Gap Statistics 2025).
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| US federal employees with a disability (FY 2021) | 10.51% (8.70% in FY 2016) | EEOC, Annual Report on the Federal Workforce FY 2021 |
| US federal employees with a targeted disability (FY 2021) | 2.12% (1.01% in FY 2016) | EEOC, Annual Report on the Federal Workforce FY 2021 |
| US federal employees with “not identified” disability status | 7.23% in FY 2021 (4.07% in FY 2016) | EEOC, Annual Report on the Federal Workforce FY 2021 |
| Federal disability share, GS 1-10 vs SES and Senior Pay | 13.55% vs 8.33% | EEOC, Annual Report on the Federal Workforce FY 2021 |
| UK civil servants declaring a disability (known status) | 17.9% (16.9% in 2024, 8.9% in 2015) | Cabinet Office, Civil Service Statistics 2025 |
| Disabled, in the UK disability pay gap population | 13.5% | Cabinet Office, Civil Service Disability Pay Gap Statistics 2025 |
| Actively undeclared, UK disability pay gap population | 5.2% | Cabinet Office, Civil Service Disability Pay Gap Statistics 2025 |
| Unknown status, UK disability pay gap population | 19.8% | Cabinet Office, Civil Service Disability Pay Gap Statistics 2025 |
Context: the UK median disability earnings pay gap in the Civil Service was 8.0% in 2025 and the median bonus pay gap 24.0%, the first comprehensive year of published data.
4. Disclosure in High-Skill Professions
Professional workforces show the widest spread between estimates, which is itself a disclosure signal. Only 2.6% of US physicians reported a disability in the 2022 National Sample Survey of Physicians (n = 5,917) (Sheets et al., JAMA Network Open 2026), and 3.1% in the 2019 edition (Nouri et al., JAMA Network Open 2021). Yet when the question is asked inside a confidential research survey of trainees, 11.8% of first-year residents reported at least one disability (Pereira-Lima et al., JAMA Network Open 2023), and 7.8% of physicians and trainees at one large academic medical center did so (Meeks et al., Health Affairs Scholar 2026).
Visibility is the strongest predictor of who discloses. In a national survey of 302 lawyers with disabilities, those with visible disabilities scored 3.15 on a 4-point scale (from “no one” to “all”) for disclosure to management, versus 2.45 for invisible or non-apparent disabilities; mental health conditions scored lowest of all (Hyseni et al., Journal of Cancer Survivorship 2022). Burnout data for the same physician population are in our emergency physician burnout roundup.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| US physicians reporting a disability (2022) | 2.6% (154 of 5,917) | Sheets et al., JAMA Network Open 2026 |
| US physicians self-identifying a disability (2019) | 3.1% (95% CI, 2.6%-3.5%) | Nouri et al., JAMA Network Open 2021 |
| First-year US resident physicians reporting a disability | 11.8% (94 of 799) | Pereira-Lima et al., JAMA Network Open 2023 |
| Physicians and trainees reporting a disability, one academic center | 7.8% (72 of 928) | Meeks et al., Health Affairs Scholar 2026 |
| Employed US nurses reporting a disability (ACS 2008-2023) | 3.5% (weighted) | Bixby et al., Health Affairs Scholar 2026 |
| Lawyers’ disclosure to management: visible vs invisible disability | 3.15 vs 2.45 (4-point scale) | Hyseni et al., Journal of Cancer Survivorship 2022 |
| Lawyers’ disclosure to clients: mental health vs other disability | 1.41 vs 2.46 (4-point scale) | Hyseni et al., Journal of Cancer Survivorship 2022 |
| Residents at one academic center reporting a disability who had accommodations | 33% (4 of 12) | Carpenter et al., BMC Medical Education 2026 |
Outlier note: the nurse wage study (Bixby et al., Health Affairs Scholar 2026) found nurses with disabilities earned 12.2% less annually, a reminder that disclosure decisions are made against real economic penalties.
5. Accommodation Requests: Where Disclosure Becomes Operational
Disclosure is usually not an announcement; it is a request for a schedule change or a piece of equipment. Only 35.5% of workers with a disability and a work-limiting health condition had ever requested or made a change at work (BLS, Persons with a Disability: Barriers to Employment, July 2024 data). When they did ask, most requests were fully granted, which suggests the bottleneck sits before the request, not after it.
The resident physician data show what that bottleneck looks like: more than half of interns who needed accommodations never asked, mostly because of fear of stigma or bias, followed by the lack of a clear institutional process. Cost is rarely the real barrier. The Job Accommodation Network found most accommodations cost nothing, and the median one-time cost was $300.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Workers with a work-limiting condition who ever requested a workplace change | 31.8% (35.5% with a disability, 29.8% without) | BLS, Barriers to Employment, July 2024 data |
| Most common request: work schedule | 47.8% of requests | BLS, Barriers to Employment, July 2024 data |
| Schedule-change requests fully granted (wage and salary workers) | 70.1% | BLS, Barriers to Employment, July 2024 data |
| Equipment requests fully granted | 67.8% | BLS, Barriers to Employment, July 2024 data |
| Interns needing accommodations who did not request them | 50.6% | Pereira-Lima et al., JAMA Network Open 2023 |
| Non-requesters citing fear of stigma or bias | 59.5% (23.8% cited no clear process) | Pereira-Lima et al., JAMA Network Open 2023 |
| Employers reporting the accommodation cost nothing | 61% | Job Accommodation Network, 2019-2024 employer survey |
| Accommodations with a one-time cost, and the median | 33%, median $300 | Job Accommodation Network, 2019-2024 employer survey |
Context: in the same BLS supplement, 39.4% of people with a work-limiting condition reported difficulty completing work duties, versus 1.6% of those without one.
6. What Non-Disclosure and Poor Support Cost: Retention and Treatment
The outcomes data explain why many employees stay quiet, and why that silence is expensive for employers. Physicians with disabilities had more than twice the odds of considering leaving medicine (OR 2.22), but among those who received accommodations, intent to leave fell to 34.3% versus 54.2% without them (Sheets et al., JAMA Network Open 2026). A 2026 Canadian survey of 730 workers with disabling conditions likewise linked negative perceptions of workplace support toward disclosure with higher odds of sustained job disruptions (Jessiman-Perreault et al., Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation 2026).
The NHS data show the treatment gap disclosed employees still face: disabled staff are twice as likely to enter formal capability processes and more likely to report harassment and pressure to work while unwell (NHS England, WDES 2024). In the US federal workforce, people with disabilities were 27% more likely to voluntarily separate than those without (EEOC). Similar burnout-to-turnover dynamics appear in our call center agent burnout data.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Physicians who considered leaving medicine: with vs without disability | 36.4% vs 23.5% (OR 2.22) | Sheets et al., JAMA Network Open 2026 |
| Intent to leave among physicians with disabilities: accommodated vs not | 34.3% vs 54.2% | Sheets et al., JAMA Network Open 2026 |
| Relative likelihood of disabled NHS staff entering formal capability process | 2.04 (2.17 in 2023) | NHS England, WDES 2024 |
| NHS staff harassed by managers: disabled vs non-disabled | 14.6% vs 8.2% | NHS England, WDES 2024 (2023 Staff Survey) |
| NHS staff pressured by managers to work while unwell: disabled vs non-disabled | 26.6% vs 18.5% | NHS England, WDES 2024 (2023 Staff Survey) |
| Disabled NHS staff saying employer made reasonable adjustments | 74.5% (73.0% in 2022) | NHS England, WDES 2024 |
| US federal voluntary separation rate: disability vs no disability (FY 2018) | 8.1% vs 6.5% | EEOC, Retaining Persons with Disabilities in the Federal Workforce 2024 |
| Fewer voluntary separations at agencies with compliant accommodation procedures | 18.5% fewer | EEOC, Retaining Persons with Disabilities in the Federal Workforce 2024 |
Most recent available data: the EEOC separation rates refer to FY 2018 and FY 2020 analyses, published in September 2024.
7. Enforcement Pressure and the 2026 Self-ID Policy Shift
Enforcement data move in the opposite direction from disclosure data: more conflicts are reaching a regulator. ADA charges rose from 22,843 in FY 2021 to 36,256 in FY 2025, when they made up 41.1% of all 88,201 charges (EEOC Enforcement and Litigation Statistics, Tables E1a and E6a). Monetary benefits obtained through ADA charges reached $192.05 million in FY 2025. Digital accessibility litigation is a parallel track; see our ADA Title III web accessibility lawsuit statistics.
At the same time, the main US mechanism that measured disability disclosure in the private sector is going away. The Department of Labor’s final rule published August 21, 2026 rescinds the Section 503 utilization requirements (the 7% benchmark) and the requirement to invite applicants to self-identify, and OFCCP lists Form CC-305 as discontinued effective September 21, 2026 (Federal Register 2026-17115). The rule states that DOL is not prohibiting contractors from making disability inquiries consistent with the ADA. This is a factual summary, not legal advice.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| ADA charges received (FY 2025) | 36,256 | EEOC Table E6a, FY 2025 |
| ADA charges as share of all EEOC charges (FY 2025) | 41.1% of 88,201 | EEOC Table E1a, FY 2025 |
| ADA charges received (FY 2024) | 33,668 (38.0% of 88,531) | EEOC Table E1a, FY 2024 |
| ADA charges received (FY 2021) | 22,843 | EEOC Table E6a |
| ADA monetary benefits (FY 2025 vs FY 2024) | $192.05 million vs $174.3 million | EEOC Table E6a |
| Comment submissions on the Section 503 NPRM | 651 | DOL, Federal Register 2026-17115 |
| Form CC-305 discontinuation date | September 21, 2026 | DOL OFCCP, Self-Identification Forms 2026 |
Context: one commenter quoted in the final rule argued that contractor disability data were unreliable because many employees with non-obvious disabilities chose not to disclose, which is the same gap sections 2 and 3 measure.
Summary: Non-Obvious Disability Disclosure Rates in Corporate Workplaces by the Numbers
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| NHS staff with disability declared on ESR (2024) | 5.7% | NHS England, WDES 2024 |
| NHS Staff Survey respondents with a 12+ month condition | 25.05% | NHS England, WDES 2024 |
| NHS staff with unknown or undeclared status | 14.3% (25.4% in 2018) | NHS England, WDES 2024 |
| US adults with any disability | More than 1 in 4 | CDC DHDS 2024 |
| US adults with a cognition disability | 13.9% | CDC DHDS 2024 |
| US adults with current ADHD | 6.0% (15.5 million) | CDC MMWR 2024 |
| US employment-population ratio, disability vs none (2025) | 22.8% vs 65.2% | BLS 2026 release |
| US unemployment rate, disability vs none (2025) | 8.3% vs 4.1% | BLS 2026 release |
| US federal “not identified” disability status (FY 2021) | 7.23% | EEOC FY 2021 |
| US federal employees with a disability (FY 2021) | 10.51% | EEOC FY 2021 |
| UK civil servants declaring a disability (known status) | 17.9% | Cabinet Office 2025 |
| UK pay gap population undeclared or unknown | 5.2% + 19.8% | Cabinet Office 2025 |
| US physicians reporting a disability (2022) | 2.6% | JAMA Network Open 2026 |
| Interns needing accommodations who did not request | 50.6% | JAMA Network Open 2023 |
| Workers with a disability who ever requested a change | 35.5% | BLS, July 2024 data |
| Accommodations costing nothing | 61% | Job Accommodation Network 2019-2024 |
| Disabled NHS staff relative likelihood of capability process | 2.04 | NHS England, WDES 2024 |
| Physicians with disabilities intent to leave, accommodated vs not | 34.3% vs 54.2% | JAMA Network Open 2026 |
| ADA charges (FY 2025) | 36,256 (41.1% of all charges) | EEOC FY 2025 |
| Form CC-305 discontinued | September 21, 2026 | DOL OFCCP 2026 |
Methodology and Sources
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics 2025 (released March 3, 2026)
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Persons with a Disability: Barriers to Employment and Other Labor-Related Issues (July 2024 reference month, released September 30, 2025)
- CDC, Disability Impacts All of Us (Disability and Health Data System)
- CDC MMWR, ADHD Diagnosis, Treatment, and Telehealth Use in Adults 2023
- WHO, Disability and Health fact sheet 2023
- NHS England, Workforce Disability Equality Standard 2024 and WDES 2025 publication page
- EEOC, FY 2021 Annual Report on the Federal Workforce, Part 2
- EEOC, Retaining Persons with Disabilities in the Federal Workforce (2024)
- EEOC, Enforcement and Litigation Statistics FY 1997-FY 2025
- UK Cabinet Office, Civil Service Statistics 2025 and Civil Service Disability Pay Gap Statistics 2025
- Job Accommodation Network, Costs and Benefits of Accommodation
- DOL OFCCP, Self-Identification Forms and Federal Register 2026-17115 final rule
- Sheets et al., Workplace Accommodations and Attrition Among Physicians With Disabilities, JAMA Network Open 2026
- Pereira-Lima et al., Barriers to Disclosure of Disability and Request for Accommodations Among First-Year Resident Physicians, JAMA Network Open 2023
- Nouri et al., Estimated Prevalence of US Physicians With Disabilities, JAMA Network Open 2021
- Meeks et al., Disability Status, Workplace Accommodations, and Well-Being Among Physicians and Trainees, Health Affairs Scholar 2026
- Bixby et al., Wage Gaps Between US Nurses With and Without Disabilities, Health Affairs Scholar 2026
- Hyseni et al., Disclosure by Lawyers With Disabilities and LGBTQ+ Lawyers, Journal of Cancer Survivorship 2022
- Jessiman-Perreault et al., Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation 2026
- Carpenter et al., Self-reported Disability, Accommodations, and Mistreatment Among Residents, BMC Medical Education 2026 (DOI 10.1186/s12909-026-09604-x)
- Data watch: there is no recent, publicly readable national survey of private-sector corporate disclosure rates; well-known consultancy and nonprofit studies (Coqual, BCG, Disability:IN Disability Index results) were not readable from their public pages during this research and were excluded rather than quoted second-hand. The NHS ESR and Staff Survey questions differ (declared disability vs a 12+ month condition), so the gap is indicative, not a like-for-like disclosure rate. The newest public EEOC federal workforce statistics we could read are FY 2021, and the separation figures are FY 2018 and FY 2020. Physician prevalence varies from 2.6% to 11.8% depending on population (practicing physicians vs interns) and survey setting (national sample vs confidential cohort study). With Form CC-305 discontinued, federal contractor self-ID data will stop being a consistent benchmark after September 2026. The WDES 2025 workbook (April 2026) was not parsed for this edition.
Last updated: October 4, 2026. We update this roundup quarterly, and the next refresh is expected when BLS publishes Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Characteristics 2026 and the EEOC releases FY 2026 charge statistics.