Background Policy objectives for people with intellectual disabilities include day service modernization and the promotion of paid employment and quality of life. Quality of life is under represented as an outcome measure in vocational research. This research compares subjective and objective quality of life, and quality of work environment for adults with intellectual disabilities in supported employment, employment enterprises and day services with non-disabled workers in community employment. Methods Comprehensive Quality of Life Scale, and Work Environment Scale were collected for people with intellectual disabilities: 17 supported employees; 10 employment enterprise workers; 10 day service attendees; and 17 non-disabled work colleagues of supported employees. Results Supported employees reported higher objective quality of life than employment enterprise workers and day service attendees. Non-disabled co-workers reported higher objective quality of life and autonomy at work than the three groups of people with intellectual disabilities. Supported employees reported higher subjective quality of life than non-disabled co-workers. Conclusions The findings support the utility of supported employment as a means to provide constructive occupation and enhanced quality of life to people with intellectual disabilities. However, closing the gap with respect to non-disabled co-workers on objective quality of life measures represents a challenge and will require improving the quality of job finding and workplace support and the training provided.