Volunteering is vital for any church to function on a Sunday and throughout the week. Volunteers are needed to run ministries for children and youth, to welcome visitors and to lead worship. Often though, volunteering is done behind the scenes and is very practical in nature, helping with administration or building maintenance.
It has been suggested that churches in the UK are experiencing a shortage of volunteers following the Covid pandemic. For example, some churches have found it difficult to restart all the activities that they had been running before the pandemic. This was something that we wanted to investigate as part of our new Changing Church 2025 research.
We asked almost 1,000 individuals and 300 church leaders a range of questions on volunteering, with the hope of understanding this key area better. Leaders were asked whether they had seen an increase or decrease in the volunteering levels at their church since 2020. Individuals were asked whether their own volunteering had increased or decreased compared to 2020. Leaders were more likely to have observed that volunteering in their church had either increased or decreased since 2020. However, individuals were more likely to say that their personal volunteering level had remained the same.
Around 40% of leaders had observed an increase in volunteering in their church since 2020, while 30% had observed a decrease. Perhaps surprisingly, it was the medium-sized churches surveyed (those with attendance between 47 and 165 adults and children) which were more likely to report a decrease in volunteering, while at the smallest churches volunteering was more likely to have remained stable.
The average individual respondent is volunteering 13 hours a month with their church. If this were valued at the level of the real Living Wage, the average church (123 adults) benefits from just under £250,000 worth of volunteer time each year.
The most common area for a church to be experiencing a volunteer shortage was in children’s work, with two thirds of churches experiencing a shortage in this area. The next most common area was youth ministry, with half of churches reporting a volunteer shortage in this area. Over 40% of churches reported a shortage of volunteers in their tech/​AV team. Given the ongoing importance of online services and outreach, this is a cause for concern.
"The most common area for a church to be experiencing a volunteer shortage was in children’s work."
We asked both leaders and individuals about the barriers to volunteering in their church. Family and work commitments were the two most commonly cited barriers by both leaders and individuals, though these were more likely to be selected by leaders than individuals. The only area that individuals were more likely to cite was a lack of opportunities (13% of individuals compared to 2% of leaders). Interestingly, just 28% of individuals believe that they are already volunteering enough.
Church leaders were asked: With regards to functioning as a church, what are your most pressing current needs? Some leaders suggested leadership, finances or premises. However, the most common pressing need of leaders surveyed was for more volunteers – 36% of church leaders identified having more volunteers as a pressing need in their church. This further highlights the problems that churches are having with finding enough volunteers in order to do all that they wish.
Despite the challenges in recruiting and retaining volunteers, churches are still actively involved in their local communities. Foodbanks and nutrition work remains the most common activity that churches are involved in in their community, with 67% of churches involved in this in early 2025. Over the last five years, the number of churches involved in addressing homelessness, supporting asylum seekers and addiction recovery groups has risen. Volunteers in these areas enable churches to serve the very practical needs of those in their local area.
These findings demonstrate that the volunteering reality is much more complex than the simple narrative of a shortage might suggest. While some churches are experiencing shortages, we should be encouraged that more churches reported an increase in volunteering over the last five years than reported a decrease. Nevertheless, let’s be aware of the areas where volunteer shortages are causing particular challenges and let’s pray for a new and younger generation of Christians willing and able to take on these volunteering roles.
Changing Church 2025 report
What is the state of the UK evangelical church five years on from the Covid pandemic? Find out more
