Britons favour a working day of 7 hours or less

A recent poll from YouGov has shown that British workers consider a working day lasting 7 hours or less the most productive. Generally, workers in Britain put in an average weekly shift of 42.9 hours - 8.5 hours a day - the fifth longest working week in Europe. The views of British workers are similar to their counterparts in the United States, who also said that a working day of less than 7 hours in the most productive. Read more in Statista's latest feature in the Independent.

Description

This chart shows responses to the question "what is the most producitive length of a working day?"

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Average weekly hours of work for full-time workers in the United Kingdom from 1st quarter 2000 to 2nd quarter 2026
Usual weekly hours of work for people in employment in the United Kingdom as of 2nd quarter 2026
What would your ideal full time working hours be?*
Overall weekly hours worked for all employees in the United Kingdom from 1st quarter 2000 to 2nd quarter 2026 (in million hours worked)
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Average weekly hours of work for full-time workers in London from 4th quarter 2004 to 1st quarter 2026
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Usual weekly working hours of all employed (employees and self-employed) in London in the United Kingdom (UK) in from October 2017 to September 2018*

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