Workers who jump between jobs four or more times in a decade earn an average of £39,276 – a 31% premium over the £30,088 earned by those who stay put, a 2025 report from financial company Wealthify has found. The data underlines a trend known as “lily padding”, in which young people hop from role to role to boost their skills and salaries rather than climbing a traditional career ladder.
Brittany Harris-Nelson, a 32-year-old assistant director of student engagement at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, describes her own journey as “a frog moving across lily pads”. Over the past decade she has held 10 different jobs at six universities, starting as a student worker and moving through positions including office manager, admissions counsellor and student advisor. “Each step brought me closer to where I ultimately wanted to be, even if the path wasn’t always linear,” she says. While her salary did not increase much with each move, she gained extra benefits such as paid leave and larger pension contributions. “Each role helped me build skills and perspectives that I didn’t yet have, and together those experiences prepared me for the work I do today.”
“Gen Z workers who change jobs frequently earn 31% more than those who stay put, according to a 2025 Wealthify study.”
The phenomenon is most pronounced among Gen Z – those born between 1997 and 2012. According to a 2024 global survey of 11,250 workers by recruitment agency Randstad, the average tenure of a Gen Z employee in their first five years of work is just 1.1 years, compared with 1.8 years for millennials (born 1981–1996) and almost three years for older generations. Industry professionals say the strategy is about “supercharging employability” by constantly seeking the next opportunity.
Adam Smiley Poswolsky, a 42-year-old public speaker and author based in San Francisco, writes and speaks about improving workplace cultures. He argues that the traditional mindset of staying with one company for years is no longer the norm. The lily-padding approach, he suggests, reflects a shift in how workers view career progression – less a single ladder and more a series of calculated leaps.
Whether this increased mobility will continue to pay off in the long run remains an open question. But for now, the data suggests that those willing to keep moving are reaping clear financial rewards.