Salary doesn't make a top job.

WORKERS are more likely to be happy in their job if they get on well with colleagues or have managers who take an interest in them rather than receiving big salaries, according to a new report today.

A survey of 1,000 adults by City & Guilds showed that fewer than half stayed in a job because of the size of their pay packet.

Having a good work-life balance and enjoying decent relationships with colleagues were more important, the study showed.

Beauty therapists and hairdressers were said to be the happiest workers in the UK, while builders and bankers were the least content with their working lives.

Bob Coates, managing director of City & Guilds, said: "With a clear impact on the bottom line, improving workplace happiness is rising up the business agenda and employers cannot afford to ignore it.

"Companies can no longer rely on those established reward and recognition policies that fail to resonate with employees and do little to combat stress levels in the workplace. By taking such a blinkered approach, they risk the rise of an unmotivated and unproductive workforce, and even potentially losing their staff to competitors."

Occupational psychology expert Prof Cary Cooper, of Lancaster University, said of the report: "It provides a call to action for the business community to rethink its reward and recognition strategies and consider employees' needs on an individual basis. It marks the end of an era for organisation-wide HR policies. From now on a flexible approach is needed if businesses are to create a happy, and by association productive, workforce."

A so-called happiness index was headed by beauty therapists, followed by hairdressers, the Armed Forces, catering/ chefs, retail staff and teachers.