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Working hours in the UK
Originally issued December 2004; latest revision May 2006
This factsheet gives introductory guidance. It:
Trends in UK working hours
A century ago people in the UK on average worked more than 50 hours each week. The length of the average working week then fell to around 35 hours by the end of the 1970s, due to the combination of higher productivity and the gradual rise of part-time working as more women entered the workforce
The downward trend came to a halt in the 1980s. This was primarily the result of a structural shift in employment towards occupations where long hours are the norm – most notably, self-employment and managerial and professional jobs. However, the trend toward shorter hours resumed in the second half of the 1990s.
Since 1998 the average working week has fallen by over an hour. According to the ONS, full-time workers (now averaging 37.34 hours) are putting in around an hour and a half less each week, although part-time workers (who average 15.7 hours) are working half an hour longer.
The cause of the fall in average working hours in the UK is not entirely clear. Some commentators attribute the fall to the introduction in 1998 of regulations that implemented the EU Working Time Directive (see below). However, this seems unlikely to offer a full explanation.
The trend to shorter hours slightly pre-dates implementation of the regulations (though this could be explained by employers anticipating change in the law). But it is also seen amongst exempt groups, such as the self-employed. This implies that there must be other reasons for the fall in hours, including the possibility that people have been seeking to achieve a more positive work-life balance - see our factsheets on Work-life balance and Flexible working.
Does the UK have a long hours culture?
Just under a quarter of people in employment (6.3 million, or 22%) work more than 45 hours a week. This is a high proportion by EU standards though other developed countries such as Australia, Japan and the United States have more long-hours workers than the UK. UK workers also have less paid leave on average than their EU counterparts (20 days per year compared to 25-30 in most EU countries) but again do better than Japan (17 days) and the United States (10 days).
A recent independent study of long hours working published by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) finds that those working the longest hours in the UK are men aged 30-49 with children and employed in the private sector. Unlike other EU countries, where people working long hours are most likely to be found working in hotels and restaurants, in the UK they are more commonly found in manufacturing. However, full-time managers in the UK, often stereotyped as classic ‘workaholics’, on average do not work longer hours than their EU counterparts.
The effects of long hours working
In 2003, the CIPD commissioned a survey amongst a representative sample of UK workers, with a particular emphasis on those working 48 hours or more per week. The findings were published as Living to Work1 and showed that the main reason for working long hours was workload. However one in two workers said that working longer hours is ‘totally [their] own choice – doesn’t mind working long hours’ – up from two out of five respondents saying the same thing in the previous survey conducted in 1998.
In the survey:
more than one in four respondents reported some sort of negative impact on health
more than two out of five respondents reported a negative impact on their relationships
most respondents reported negative effects on their job performance.
A major review for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in 2003 of the literature on the relationship between long hours working and health2 concluded that ‘There is some evidence that working long hours can lead to stress or mental ill-health, although this is somewhat equivocal. The way an individual thinks about their job and the amount of control they have over their job will mediate this relationship’.
Similarly a report by Professor David Guest on Pressure at work and the psychological contract3 examined the impact of a range of factors on employee perceptions of their health and daily well being. The report concluded that ‘…although working longer hours may be harmful to health, the social support received by those working long hours and their control over their work have a positive effect, mitigating some of the negative effects’.
The legal position
The main regulations governing working time are the Working Time Regulations 1998 (SI 1998/1833) (WTR) which came into force on 1st October 1998. The WTR implement the provisions of the original Working Time Directive (93/104/EC).
The WTR have been subsequently amended or supplemented on an almost annual basis by domestic regulations including the following:
Working Time (Amendment) Regulations 2006 (SI 2006/99)
The basic rights
The WTR represented a break with tradition in the UK where working time has normally been determined by negotiations between employers and individual employees, though influenced to varying degrees by collective agreements.
Since October 1998, the WTR have provided employees with the following basic rights and protections:
a limit of an average of 48 hours a week over a 17 week period which a worker can be required to work
a limit of an average of eight hours work in 24 hours which night workers can work
a right to 11 hours rest a day and a right to a day off each week
a right to an in work rest break if the working day is longer than six hours
a right to four weeks paid leave per year.
Organisations in Britain actively implement the opt-out clause to the 48 hour limit, which allows for companies to ask employees to work more than 48 hours a week in a four-month period. However, as part of its 10-year review of opt-out, the European Commission has proposed changes, including:
the complete removal of opt-outs
preventing individuals from opting-out when they sign a contract of employment
an individual’s decision to opt-out would have to be in writing and would be valid for a maximum of one year, subject to renewal
no employee would be able to work more than 65 hours a week.
The Government have issued a consultation document Working time - widening the debate4 to help inform policy development. The CIPD response5 is available on our website. On 11 May 2005, a full vote of the European Parliament decided that the provision which allows individuals to opt-out will be removed completely by 2010. Support for this change is divided with the UK, Germany, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Malta and Cyprus all wanting to keep individual opt-outs, and France, Belgium, Sweden, Spain, Greece and Finland all favouring ending of the opt-out. The last major review of the matter in December 2005 failed to reach an agreement, but unless the blocking coalition is successful, it looks as if the opt-out may be phased out and employers will have to adopt the rules laid out in the Working Time Directive.
CIPD members can find out more on the legal aspects of working time from our FAQ on Working Time Regulations in the Employment Law at Work area of our website.
CIPD viewpoint
The CIPD believes that employers should protect their employees from overwork. Where employees are working consistently long hours and/or this is having a negative impact on their employment performance or well being, employers should take steps to establish why this is so and consider what might be done to address the issue.
In this respect the Working Time Directive may have encouraged positive changes in the attitudes and behaviour of employers and employees. However, any attempt to remove the right of employees to voluntarily opt out of the provisions of the directive would harm labour market flexibility in the UK.
The CIPD believes that the best way to tackle the long hours culture is to promote a restructuring of working time and the way in which people work, by, for example, offering people flexible hours. The CIPD therefore welcomes the statutory right (introduced in April 2003) for parents with young children to request flexible working, and the planned extension of this right to carers of certain categories of adults.
CIPD survey evidence suggests that most employers are taking a positive approach to the flexible working regulations and accepting a high proportion of requests. Few employers report serious costs or difficulties in implementing the regulations.
Working hours in the UK
Originally issued December 2004; latest revision May 2006
This factsheet gives introductory guidance. It:
Trends in UK working hours
A century ago people in the UK on average worked more than 50 hours each week. The length of the average working week then fell to around 35 hours by the end of the 1970s, due to the combination of higher productivity and the gradual rise of part-time working as more women entered the workforce
The downward trend came to a halt in the 1980s. This was primarily the result of a structural shift in employment towards occupations where long hours are the norm – most notably, self-employment and managerial and professional jobs. However, the trend toward shorter hours resumed in the second half of the 1990s.
Since 1998 the average working week has fallen by over an hour. According to the ONS, full-time workers (now averaging 37.34 hours) are putting in around an hour and a half less each week, although part-time workers (who average 15.7 hours) are working half an hour longer.
The cause of the fall in average working hours in the UK is not entirely clear. Some commentators attribute the fall to the introduction in 1998 of regulations that implemented the EU Working Time Directive (see below). However, this seems unlikely to offer a full explanation.
The trend to shorter hours slightly pre-dates implementation of the regulations (though this could be explained by employers anticipating change in the law). But it is also seen amongst exempt groups, such as the self-employed. This implies that there must be other reasons for the fall in hours, including the possibility that people have been seeking to achieve a more positive work-life balance - see our factsheets on Work-life balance and Flexible working.
Does the UK have a long hours culture?
Just under a quarter of people in employment (6.3 million, or 22%) work more than 45 hours a week. This is a high proportion by EU standards though other developed countries such as Australia, Japan and the United States have more long-hours workers than the UK. UK workers also have less paid leave on average than their EU counterparts (20 days per year compared to 25-30 in most EU countries) but again do better than Japan (17 days) and the United States (10 days).
A recent independent study of long hours working published by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) finds that those working the longest hours in the UK are men aged 30-49 with children and employed in the private sector. Unlike other EU countries, where people working long hours are most likely to be found working in hotels and restaurants, in the UK they are more commonly found in manufacturing. However, full-time managers in the UK, often stereotyped as classic ‘workaholics’, on average do not work longer hours than their EU counterparts.
The effects of long hours working
In 2003, the CIPD commissioned a survey amongst a representative sample of UK workers, with a particular emphasis on those working 48 hours or more per week. The findings were published as Living to Work1 and showed that the main reason for working long hours was workload. However one in two workers said that working longer hours is ‘totally [their] own choice – doesn’t mind working long hours’ – up from two out of five respondents saying the same thing in the previous survey conducted in 1998.
In the survey:
more than one in four respondents reported some sort of negative impact on health
more than two out of five respondents reported a negative impact on their relationships
most respondents reported negative effects on their job performance.
A major review for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in 2003 of the literature on the relationship between long hours working and health2 concluded that ‘There is some evidence that working long hours can lead to stress or mental ill-health, although this is somewhat equivocal. The way an individual thinks about their job and the amount of control they have over their job will mediate this relationship’.
Similarly a report by Professor David Guest on Pressure at work and the psychological contract3 examined the impact of a range of factors on employee perceptions of their health and daily well being. The report concluded that ‘…although working longer hours may be harmful to health, the social support received by those working long hours and their control over their work have a positive effect, mitigating some of the negative effects’.
The legal position
The main regulations governing working time are the Working Time Regulations 1998 (SI 1998/1833) (WTR) which came into force on 1st October 1998. The WTR implement the provisions of the original Working Time Directive (93/104/EC).
The WTR have been subsequently amended or supplemented on an almost annual basis by domestic regulations including the following:
Working Time (Amendment) Regulations 2006 (SI 2006/99)
The basic rights
The WTR represented a break with tradition in the UK where working time has normally been determined by negotiations between employers and individual employees, though influenced to varying degrees by collective agreements.
Since October 1998, the WTR have provided employees with the following basic rights and protections:
a limit of an average of 48 hours a week over a 17 week period which a worker can be required to work
a limit of an average of eight hours work in 24 hours which night workers can work
a right to 11 hours rest a day and a right to a day off each week
a right to an in work rest break if the working day is longer than six hours
a right to four weeks paid leave per year.
Organisations in Britain actively implement the opt-out clause to the 48 hour limit, which allows for companies to ask employees to work more than 48 hours a week in a four-month period. However, as part of its 10-year review of opt-out, the European Commission has proposed changes, including:
the complete removal of opt-outs
preventing individuals from opting-out when they sign a contract of employment
an individual’s decision to opt-out would have to be in writing and would be valid for a maximum of one year, subject to renewal
no employee would be able to work more than 65 hours a week.
The Government have issued a consultation document Working time - widening the debate4 to help inform policy development. The CIPD response5 is available on our website. On 11 May 2005, a full vote of the European Parliament decided that the provision which allows individuals to opt-out will be removed completely by 2010. Support for this change is divided with the UK, Germany, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Malta and Cyprus all wanting to keep individual opt-outs, and France, Belgium, Sweden, Spain, Greece and Finland all favouring ending of the opt-out. The last major review of the matter in December 2005 failed to reach an agreement, but unless the blocking coalition is successful, it looks as if the opt-out may be phased out and employers will have to adopt the rules laid out in the Working Time Directive.
CIPD members can find out more on the legal aspects of working time from our FAQ on Working Time Regulations in the Employment Law at Work area of our website.
CIPD viewpoint
The CIPD believes that employers should protect their employees from overwork. Where employees are working consistently long hours and/or this is having a negative impact on their employment performance or well being, employers should take steps to establish why this is so and consider what might be done to address the issue.
In this respect the Working Time Directive may have encouraged positive changes in the attitudes and behaviour of employers and employees. However, any attempt to remove the right of employees to voluntarily opt out of the provisions of the directive would harm labour market flexibility in the UK.
The CIPD believes that the best way to tackle the long hours culture is to promote a restructuring of working time and the way in which people work, by, for example, offering people flexible hours. The CIPD therefore welcomes the statutory right (introduced in April 2003) for parents with young children to request flexible working, and the planned extension of this right to carers of certain categories of adults.
CIPD survey evidence suggests that most employers are taking a positive approach to the flexible working regulations and accepting a high proportion of requests. Few employers report serious costs or difficulties in implementing the regulations.
