Opinion
The four-day week has moved from a fringe idea to a serious option for British employers, and I think it is time more of them took it seriously. Hundreds of UK companies have now adopted a shorter working week with no loss of pay, and the largest trial so far found that most of them had no intention of going back. At a time when burnout is widespread, recruitment is hard and productivity growth has been weak for years, a four-day working week deserves more than a sceptical shrug.
I am not arguing that every business can switch overnight, or that it will work in every job. But the evidence so far is strong enough that the burden of proof has shifted. Here are five reasons Britain should embrace the idea, and an honest look at the best arguments against it.
Table of Contents
What a four-day week actually means
The version most campaigners support is sometimes called “100-80-100”: staff keep 100% of their pay, work 80% of their previous hours, and commit to maintaining 100% of their output. It is not simply cramming five days of work into four longer days, which is called a compressed week and is a different arrangement.
In practice, companies take different approaches. Some close on Fridays. Others stagger days off so the business stays open five days a week. Some cut hours across the week rather than giving a whole day off. The common thread is less time at work for the same pay, with the expectation that people work more efficiently.
What the UK trial found
The biggest test of the idea in Britain ran from June to December 2022. Sixty-one companies, employing around 2,900 people, took part in a pilot organised by the campaign group 4 Day Week Global, the think tank Autonomy and researchers from the University of Cambridge and Boston College.
The results, published in early 2023, were striking. Of the 61 companies, 56 decided to continue with a four-day week after the trial, and 18 made it permanent. Revenue stayed broadly the same over the trial period. Staff reported lower levels of burnout, better sleep and less anxiety, and sick days and resignations fell sharply compared with the same period a year earlier.
The momentum has continued. In early 2025, it was reported that around 200 UK companies, employing thousands of people, had signed up to a permanent four-day week with no loss of pay. South Cambridgeshire District Council became the first English council to trial the approach, a move that turned into a political row with the previous government.
Reason 1: People are exhausted
Burnout is not a buzzword. Long-term sickness has kept large numbers of people out of the British workforce in recent years, with mental health problems among the leading causes. Many more are still working but struggling, juggling jobs with caring for children or elderly parents, long commutes and rising costs.
A four-day week gives people something that no pay rise can buy: time. Time to rest, to see a doctor, to exercise, to look after family without taking unpaid leave. The UK trial’s findings on burnout and wellbeing were among its most consistent results.
Healthier, less exhausted staff are not just good for workers. They take fewer sick days, make fewer mistakes and are less likely to quit.
Reason 2: It helps employers recruit and keep staff
Many British employers are struggling to hire, particularly in skilled roles. A four-day week is a powerful selling point. In the trial and among companies that have adopted it since, employers have often reported more applications and fewer resignations.
Replacing a member of staff is expensive. Recruitment fees, training time and lost productivity add up quickly. If a four-day working week helps keep good people, it can pay for itself before any productivity gains are counted.
Smaller firms, which cannot match big employers on salary, may benefit most. Offering a shorter working week lets them compete for talent in a different way.
Reason 3: Productivity is about focus, not hours
Britain has a long-standing productivity problem. Output per hour has grown slowly since the 2008 financial crisis, and British workers put in longer hours than many of their European neighbours without producing more.
Anyone who has worked in an office knows why. Long meetings, constant email, unclear priorities and interruptions eat into the day. Companies moving to four days are forced to cut that waste: fewer and shorter meetings, protected time for focused work, and a hard look at tasks that add little value.
It is not magic. Productivity gains are not guaranteed, and some jobs cannot be sped up. But the evidence suggests that many employers were not using all five days efficiently in the first place.
Reason 4: Families and communities benefit
A day off each week changes family life. Parents can do school runs, attend appointments and spend more time with their children. Carers can support relatives without using up holiday or reducing their hours and pay. People have more time to volunteer, play sport or take part in their communities.
There are equality benefits too. Women still do more unpaid caring work on average, and many move to part-time roles with lower pay and fewer promotion opportunities because full-time hours do not fit around family life. A four-day week on full pay could help close that gap.
Reason 5: The rest of the world is experimenting
Britain is not alone. Iceland ran large trials of shorter working hours in the public sector between 2015 and 2019, which researchers described as a success, and a large majority of Icelandic workers have since gained the right to shorter hours or other flexible arrangements. Belgium gave workers the right to request a compressed four-day week in 2022. In 2025, Tokyo’s city government began offering its staff the option of a four-day week.
In the United States, the idea has entered national politics, with proposals in Congress for a 32-hour standard working week, although none has become law. Many American companies, particularly in technology, have run their own trials.
Countries that learn how to make shorter working weeks work well could gain an edge in attracting and keeping skilled workers.
The best arguments against a four-day week
An honest case has to take the objections seriously. The first is that not every job can shrink its hours without more staff. Hospitals, care homes, schools, shops and factories need people present for set hours. In those sectors, a four-day week may mean hiring more people, which costs money that many public services and small businesses do not have.
The second is measurement. It is easier to judge productivity in a sales team than in a hospital ward or a council planning department. Critics worry that some trials relied too heavily on self-reported wellbeing rather than hard output data, and that the companies that volunteer for trials are the ones most likely to succeed.
The third concerns pressure. Squeezing the same work into fewer hours can make days more intense, and some workers in trials reported feeling rushed. A poorly designed four-day week could lead to longer days and more stress rather than less.
These are fair points. They argue for careful design and honest evaluation, not for ignoring the evidence altogether.
How to make it work
The companies that have succeeded tend to follow similar steps. They start with a trial of six months or so, with clear goals and ways to measure output. They involve staff in redesigning how work is done, cutting unnecessary meetings and processes. They stagger days off where customers need five-day cover. And they are willing to adjust or reverse course if it is not working.
For public services, the path is harder and probably slower. Pilots in councils, and in parts of the civil service where work is office-based, could show what is possible before any wider change.
What government could do
The government does not need to legislate a four-day week to make progress. It could fund well-designed trials in the public sector, publish clear evidence, and encourage employers to consider it alongside other forms of flexible working. It could also make sure that people on shorter weeks are protected from being quietly pressured into working unpaid extra hours.
The current government has made flexible working a bigger part of employment policy. A four-day week is a natural next conversation, and one that should be driven by evidence rather than ideology from either side.
A brief history of the working week
The hours we treat as normal are more recent than they feel. In the early 19th century, factory workers in Britain, including children, often worked 12 hours or more a day, six days a week. Reformers such as Robert Owen campaigned for an eight-hour day, summed up in the slogan “eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest.”
It took generations of campaigning, strikes and legislation to get there. In the United States, Henry Ford moved his factory workers to a five-day, 40-hour week in 1926, arguing that rested workers were more productive and had more time to spend their wages. A federal law later made 40 hours the standard working week for many American workers.
In Britain, the Working Time Regulations of 1998 set a maximum average working week of 48 hours, although workers can opt out. Each of these changes was called unrealistic or ruinous for business at the time. Each became normal.
The view from small businesses
Small business owners are often the most sceptical, and with good reason. A company with five staff has little slack. If one person is off, customers notice. Many owners already work far more than five days a week themselves.
Yet some of the most enthusiastic adopters have been small firms, from marketing agencies and software companies to bakeries and recruitment consultancies. For them, the shorter week became a way to compete with bigger employers for staff without paying salaries they cannot afford.
The lesson from those businesses is that success depends on the work. Firms where output can be measured and where customers can be served on a rota tend to find it easier. Firms that depend on one person being available at all times find it harder. There is no shame in deciding it does not fit.
What it could mean for public services
Public services are where the debate is most heated. Supporters argue that shorter weeks could help the NHS, schools and councils recruit and keep staff at a time of chronic shortages. Critics argue that services already stretched thin cannot afford to have staff working fewer hours, and that taxpayers should not fund what they see as a perk.
My view is that the answer depends on the job. Office-based roles in councils and the civil service are a sensible place for careful, independently evaluated trials. Frontline roles in hospitals and care homes are much harder, and any change there would need extra staff and funding.
What would help most is good evidence. Publicly funded trials, with clear measures of service quality, cost and staff retention, would allow a sensible decision rather than a political fight.
What workers say about the change
In surveys and interviews after the UK trial, many employees described the extra day as life-changing: more time with children, less stress about appointments and chores, and more energy at work. Some said they would need a large pay rise to accept a return to five days.
Not everyone was positive. Some staff found the four working days more intense, and some managers struggled to adapt. A few companies found that customers noticed reduced availability. These experiences are a reminder that the shorter working week needs to be designed well, not just announced.
Why I think the case is strong
I came to this issue expecting the evidence to be thinner than campaigners claimed. What I found instead was a growing body of results from real companies, most of which chose to keep the four-day working week after trying it. That does not prove it works everywhere, but it is hard to dismiss.
We accepted the five-day week, and the weekend, only in the 20th century, after long campaigns that were once called unrealistic. There is no law of nature that says 40 hours over five days is the right amount of work in the 2020s.
Our opinion piece on cell phone bans in schools makes a similar argument about attention and focus in classrooms. In both cases, the question is the same: are we organising our time in the way that helps people do their best work?
How to suggest a four-day week at work
If you think a four-day week could work where you are, a thoughtful proposal is more likely to succeed than a casual request. Start by gathering evidence from trials and from companies in your sector that have made the change. Then suggest a time-limited pilot rather than a permanent switch, which feels less risky to managers.
Be specific about how the work will still get done. Explain how customer cover would be organised, which meetings or tasks could be cut, and how results would be measured, whether through sales, response times, project delivery or customer satisfaction. Agree in advance what would happen if the trial does not meet its goals.
Finally, involve colleagues. A four-day week works best when a whole team redesigns its work together, rather than when one person tries to fit five days into four alone.
Four-day week: questions readers ask
What is a four-day week?
Usually, it means working around 32 hours over four days, with no cut in pay, while aiming to keep the same output.
Is a four-day week the same as compressed hours?
No. Compressed hours means working the same total hours in fewer days. A four-day week reduces total hours.
How many UK companies use a four-day week?
In early 2025, around 200 UK companies were reported to have signed up to a permanent four-day week with no loss of pay, and many more offer it informally.
Did the UK four-day week trial work?
Most participating companies said it did. Of the 61 companies in the 2022 trial, 56 continued after it ended.
Can every job have a four-day week?
Not easily. Jobs that require staff to be present for fixed hours may need more staff or different rotas to make it work.
If your employer is open to it, suggest a six-month trial with clear goals, and let the results decide. For more views, see our opinion section, and read more about the research at 4 Day Week Global.
