Are your employees at risk of burnout? New data reveals who does the most overtime

Quiet quitting may be the work term of the year, but it seems that for many, the practice has passed them by.

It turns out that, as a nation, we do a lot of overtime. On top of our contractual hours, we’re working an extra 163 hours per year. That’s equivalent to more than 22 days of extra work every year – close to one full month’s overtime.

But these figures do differ from region to region. And some workers are more at risk of burnout than others.

To find out where people are working the most hours, the business finance experts at NerdWallet, have crunched the latest figures to reveal where in the UK workers are putting in the most graft.

The good thing is that there are a lot of workers in it together. Those in Northern Ireland, Yorkshire and the Humber and Wales take the top spot when it comes to overtime, racking up an additional 24 days in overtime. Not far behind are those in the West Midlands, who spend an extra 23 days at work, or working.

At the opposite end of the scale, workers in the South West seemingly have the best work/life balance in the UK, but they do still clock in the hours: 143 hours to be exact, which works out at 19 days per year.

Men tend to do more overtime than women – just under 26 days per year, as opposed to just over 17.5 days per year for women. And this is true for every region in the UK. Men in the South East, however, work the least overtime, at 21.3 days extra per year, while men in Yorkshire and the Humber clock in more than 30 days in overtime per year. That’s a full calendar month every year.

Women in Wales top the list for the most hours of overtime every year for females. Their counterparts in Scotland, however, clock off earlier, with fewer than 14.5 days in overtime over the course of the year.

All in all, this overtime for the average worker, added on to contractual hours, means full-time workers are clocking in just under 1922 hours per year – more than 160 hours more than they’re contracted.

Connor Campbell, business expert at NerdWallet, says, “It’s long been proven that British workers put in some of the longest weekly hours at work. Although this has reduced over the years, there’s still a long way to go if we want to really embrace the work/life balance some of our European colleagues have fostered.

“The number of hours worked on top of what is contracted is astonishing. A couple of hours here and there may not feel like much at the time, but it evidently all adds up, and can mean we’re at risk of burning out and getting work fatigue. The worrying thing is, this is also only paid overtime and doesn’t include those unpaid hours spent on the job. Therefore, overtime figures are likely to be much higher.”

“The Covid-19 pandemic made millions of people think differently about their work/life balance, and as such has paved the way for trends like quiet quitting. However, the adoption of these trends tend to only come about from workers who feel they are overworked and thus become disengaged. So the rise of the term means something needs to be done.

“The four-day week trial, which has proven to be successful so far, could go some way to reducing the number of hours Brits work, specifically overtime, but it’s down to employers to make sure workloads reduce in-line with working hours, and that employees are able to really make the most of this new way of working.”

It does seem, however, that post-pandemic, overtime is becoming less frequent. Overtime in 2021 dropped to just under 3.5 hours per week, down from just over 3.5 hours per week, on average between 2014 and 2019.

That being said, in six of the regions we looked at, women were doing more overtime, on average, post-pandemic than they were pre-pandemic. This compared to just one region, the East Midlands, for men.

For more information about NerdWallet, visit: www.nerdwallet.com/uk/business