A third of workers in the capital admit to regularly phoning in sick when they are not, contrasting with the national average of 19%. More than one in nine Londoners do so at least three times a year, compared with the national average of 6%.
The TNS survey found that workers in the North West are most honest, with more than two thirds never absent for reasons other than sickness.
Those reasons include hangovers, job hunting and bad weather.
"We have seen a steady increase in employers taking practical measures to curb sickies," says Gemma Camp, head of stakeholder management at TNS. "But rather than just coming down hard on employees, businesses need to introduce better incentives for high attendance and seek to identify what it is that drives people to call in sick."
