How many hours is considered full time? Learning to tell ‘working’ time

‘It’s a full-time job!’ has been used to describe efforts and undertakings of varying degrees, from raising kids (an understatement, if anything), to staying on top of your laundry pile/garden/emails, to keeping up with the seemingly endless supply of Harlan Coben adaptations hitting Netflix (it’s a two episode a day minimum commitment at this point). But are we exaggerating, or underplaying our efforts?

How many hours do you have to rack up before you can call something full-time? You’d likely get a different answer depending on who you asked. Bank or agency staff might call it a week at 30. Music industry execs could say 25 or 40 – are we counting gigs and boozy lunches?! A teacher could laugh and say 50 at best. A ‘full-time parent’ might simply break down in exhausted tears. Time is elastic, and the concept of full-time maybe even more so.

With work schedules more flexible than ever (yay!) and four-day weeks with no loss of pay being more widely adopted, what counts as ‘full-time’ these days? Does it even matter now?

Table of Contents

• Understanding ‘full-time’
• So how many hours is it?
• What does the law say?
• The impact on leave
• What does flexible work mean for full-time work?
• Key takeaways

Understanding ‘full-time’

The short answer is that yes, concepts of full- and part-time work are still relevant and you do need to understand them, as they impact pay, rights and benefits. A ‘full-time’ contract can, for example, be a gateway to perks like pension schemes, extra holiday and better job security. Paid holiday is accrued on a ‘pro rata’ basis, so the standard 28 days shrinks in real terms for part-time workers (again there is a range, but typically fewer than 30 hours per week).

You also need to know how many hours your full-time contract requires so that you can be sure you are being paid the National Minimum or Living Wage. While your hourly rate might look pretty healthy if you work the 37.5 hours in your contract, if you’re routinely doing 45 then you could be owed extra leave and/or pay. If those hours take your average hourly rate below the legal minimum, then your employer is breaking the law. So knowing what full-time hours are for you ensures you’re getting a fair deal.

So how many hours is it?

This is where things get a bit… vague. There is no set legal number of hours, though the most common range in the UK is between 35 to 40 hours per week. This of course varies across industries. For instance, retail jobs tend to sit at the lower end, with full-time commonly capped at 37.5 hours, while healthcare and hospitality workers can often expect to see 40+ hour weeks as standard. Savvy tech companies and out-to-impress startups might offer shorter full-time hours as part of a flexible working offer, in hopes of reeling in the younger cohorts entering the workforce for whom work–life balance is a top priority.

Of course, contracted hours are not the full story, either. There’s overtime to consider. Anyone who knows a teacher will be well aware of the fact that their ’35-hour’ week takes no account of the hours spent marking and planning lessons in the evenings and at weekends.

What does the law say?

Not a lot. The only legal limit derives from UK working time laws, mainly the Working Time Regulations 1998, which aim to protect workers from excessive hours and ensure fair working conditions. This is important to promote health and safety and protect work–life balance.

The key provision in these laws as they relate to full-time work are the 48-hour maximum working week (averaged over 17 weeks), so while a teacher might have a mad few weeks in exam season, or over Christmas if you’re working in a restaurant, or when working a big case as a lawyer, you cannot be contracted or compelled to work for more than 48 hours a week as standard. The only way around this is for the employee to opt out, in writing.

The vast majority of full-time contracts will sit below this threshold anyway, so it’s not really a legal definition of full-time work, but it stops contracts and hours from spiralling without worker consent. It means that industries notorious for long hours must carefully monitor work patterns to ensure they don’t breach regulations.

The opt-out clause also means workers do have the freedom to consent to a much longer ‘full-time’ week. They might do this for various reasons, such as more flexibility (if long weeks are offset by shorter ones later on), in pursuit of career advancement (a form of presenteeism, and something to be cautious of), or to earn more (perhaps temporarily).

This is more likely in industries where overtime and long hours are common, such as finance and healthcare. Opting out must be voluntary, and recorded in writing, either as part of the employment contract or a separate document. It cannot be required or demanded by the employer as a condition of hiring, and can be withdrawn at any time (with notice).

Ultimately, when trying to get your head around full-time hours, what’s important is what it says in your contract. This is what your rate of pay (and tax, leave allowance and pension) is based on and so is how you can spot if you’re being short-changed.

The impact on leave

Knowing your full-time hours is important because all workers in the UK are entitled to 5.6 weeks of annual leave a year. This is pro-rated for part-time workers, so you need to know your contracted hours too! The standard 28 days that most people assume this means is based on a 5-day working week, normally 35–40 hours. But if you’re contracted to work 45 hours over 6 days each week, then that same leave entitlement would work out as 33.6 days a year. For a four-day weeker, it would be 22.4 days.

So the ‘standard’ 28 days is just an example, not a set number. If you are entitled to more, you need to know this so you can take it! Employers need to factor this in to ensure that everyone gets the time off they need and deserve. This prevents full-time contracts from getting overwhelming and means all workers have enough time to rest and recharge.

What does flexible work mean for full-time work?

Flexible work patterns are on the up in the UK and look to be here to stay, with trends towards remote working, a four-day week and compressed schedules becoming commonplace. This means that a working day, week or month can look very different for different people – even those working for the same company.

In this context, defining full-time work is less about the exact pattern of your ‘9–5’ and instead about meeting contracted hours in a way that works for employees and employer alike. When we get this right, full-time work becomes a more balanced, productive and enjoyable experience. It also becomes more feasible for many – eg parents, the disabled, the neurodivergent and those living outside of big cities. For example, remote working means you can put your hours in – whether that’s 35 or 45 – from the kitchen table.

In this way, flexible working is a facilitator of, not a threat to, full-time work, giving people more ways and means to fit those hours into awkward schedules. Compressed hours, WFH, four-day weeks – any of these different setups can still qualify as ‘full-time’ if the total hours meet the agreed/contracted threshold.

The concept of ‘full-time’ may evolve even further in the future, if instead of counting hours we shift to measuring output as an indicator of the ‘amount’ of work. This would mean a focus on what’s achieved rather than how long it takes. But we’ll have to wait and see.

Key takeaways

While it is evolving and adapting to modern life and shifting priorities around work, the concept of ‘full-time hours’ is still an important one to get to grips with in the UK employment landscape as it is the foundation for various benefits and employment rights.

As working life shifts with the times, full-time work is becoming smarter, not harder, and flexible working provides an adaptable framework ready to meet the needs of modern life. Whether you’re logging your hours from the beach or the office, it’s all work and it all counts. Remember, for all those hours you work, you’re entitled to holiday and rest time – but you’ve got to count it to claim it!

Full-time work is becoming smarter, not harder, and it’s an adaptable framework ready to meet the needs of modern life.