A five-day workweek was once seen as a revolutionary change in the early 1900s. But a century later, is it time to go one step further and reduce the working week to four days? According to campaigners, the benefits of the four-day workweek include better work-life balance, lower stress, and increased productivity.
Although sparking interest in the 1970s, the concept of the four-day workweek has only recently taken off, with a series of successful international trials. In the UK, half of the companies involved in the 2022 four-day workweek trial (the biggest in the world) made the policy permanent.
To find out how easy it is to find a four-day working week job we scraped 46,079 job adverts for more than 60 common job types that could be done in a four-day work week. For those who don’t know, this means doing the job requirements in four days that usually would have been done in five without a change in pay.
Contents
Key findings:
- It’s rare to find a four-day workweek job. On average, only one in a hundred (1.61%) jobs advertises four-day workweeks in the UK.
- The jobs most likely to offer four-day workweeks are quality inspectors (5.17%), security officers (4.92%), and HR assistants (2.5%).
- The average salary for an advertised four-day workweek role is £37,142 (6% above the average UK salary of £34,963).
- London has the highest percentage of four-day roles (2.7%) whilst Cardiff has the smallest percentage of jobs labelled four-day workweek (0.4%).
- Outside of London, Nottingham and Sheffield were the two best cities to find four-day workweek jobs.
- On average, jobs offering a four-day workweek pay 3.3% less than those with five working days.
What are four-day work week capable jobs?
For this analysis, we compiled a list of more than 60 jobs that could be done in four-day weeks. Jobs like a paramedic or a teacher aren’t going to be able to squeeze five days’ worth of work into four no matter how hard they try.
To make sure we weren’t analysing jobs like this, we used four-day workweek job boards (listed in the methodology) to get a list of more than 60 job types that could feasibly be done in four days. This would typically be more office-based jobs and those that don’t require customer interactions five days a week but as our research found, it’s not exclusive to a desk job.
How many four-day week opportunities are there in the UK?
Overall, this research found that four-day workweek jobs are rare and job hunters should snap them up when they can get them. Only 1.61% of four-day workweek capable jobs offered this working pattern. Despite the largest trial in the world being in the UK, it seems it’s going to take some time for it to catch on.
Just under half of these jobs (46.43%) embraced remote working, three in ten (32.14%) were hybrid and two in ten (21.43%) were on-site (typically in an office).
One of the major benefits of an official ‘four-day workweek’ compared to a part-time role is being paid a 100% salary for 80% of the time. The average salary for a four-day workweek was £37,142 – 6.2% above the national average of £34,963.
UK jobs most likely to have four-day workweeks
If you want to work four days a week for the same full-time pay, these are the jobs you want to look out for. The percentage refers to the number of job adverts that offered a four-day workweek across the UK.
| Rank | Job | % of roles offering 4 -day workweek | Average UK salary for role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Quality Inspector | 5.17% | £27,000 |
| 2 | Security Officer | 4.92% | £24,987 |
| 3 | HR assistant | 2.50% | £24,390 |
| 4 | Marketing executive | 2.39% | £27,500 |
| 5 | Solicitor | 2.33% | £45,000 |
| 6 | Office administrator | 2.32% | £22,556 |
| 7 | HR manager | 2.13% | £45,000 |
| 8 | Data analyst | 1.81% | £35,000 |
| 9 | Public relations manager | 1.80% | £37,500 |
| 10 | Marketing manager | 1.72% | £40,000 |
1. Quality inspector
Quality inspectors review a product or materials on behalf of a company to ensure they are functional and safe for general use. The specialisms of a quality inspector can be diverse – you could be testing a food product or the wheels of a plane. The national average salary of a quality inspector is around £27,000 per year.
2. Security officer
A security officer or security guard monitors surveillance equipment and patrols properties on foot to make sure the premises are secure. Sometimes, this might involve having to physically prevent criminal behaviour.
Because some premises need to be secured 24/7, security officer jobs are less likely to be 9-5 than other careers, and shift work is more common. This could be why, unlike other blue-collar jobs, security is well-suited to a four-day workweek setup. The average salary for a security officer in the UK is £24,987.
3. HR assistant
Human resources assistants had a higher rate of four-day workweek opportunities than their managerial counterparts (7th place) with 2.5% of jobs on offer in the UK giving HRs one day off a week. An HR team may have more junior positions than managerial ones therefore there could be an expected higher rate of jobs, therefore four-day week jobs, available at that level.
In terms of the day-to-day, HR assistants will help to hire talent, review employee feedback and support their wider HR team. This could be at any size business, but typically micro businesses of less than 10 employees are less likely to have internal HR.
4. Marketing executive
In the world of marketing, an executive is actually an entry-level position usually similar to an assistant. Similarly to HR assistants, marketing executives enjoy more four-day workweek opportunities (2.39%) than their managerial colleagues (1.72%).
A marketing executive’s job will differ based on the company or companies they work for. They could be copywriting, working on social media, or helping to implement advertising strategies set by those with more experience. Those looking to enjoy a shorter work week with a marketing executive role can expect an average salary of £27,500 and lower than that if it is their first job.
5. Solicitor
Solicitors can work in a variety of businesses to provide legal advice and represent a client’s legal interests. This can be anything from big business sales to organising a divorce between a couple.
Solicitors earn an average salary of around £45,000 but this can be much much higher in large corporations.
Which jobs are the least likely to have a four-day workweek?
As discussed, there are some jobs like those in the emergency services that aren’t going to get access to a four-day work week in its current setup. But out of those jobs that do offer four-day work weeks, the following were found to be the least likely to offer it:
- Management consultant (0.39%)
- Copywriter (0.44%)
- People and culture manager (0.63%)
- iOS engineer (0.67%)
- Fashion designer (0.69%)
Despite HR being a hot job for four-day work weeks, those labelled as people and culture managers aren’t often enjoying the same benefits. Similarly, while marketing executives and managers get access to a reduced work week, those working specifically as copywriters are the second-least likely job to get a four-day work week, just behind management consultants.
The four-day workweek market in different UK cities
Our analysis of the 46,000+ four-day workweek listings also took into account the location of the roles to find out which cities are benefitting the most from the four-day workweek.
The best cities for four-day workweek jobs
This revealed that London had the highest percentage of jobs with four-day working week opportunities (2.70%) which was double the UK average (1.32%). This may be expected with London’s job market, however, outside of the capital the top cities may surprise some.
In the East Midlands, Nottingham had the next highest percentage of opportunities (1.99%) ahead of Sheffield (1.97%) in third, followed by Liverpool (1.96%), and Stoke-on-Trent (1.58%).
The worst cities for four-day workweek jobs
Although reviews of the four-day workweek trials were largely positive, this doesn’t mean that the practice has been adopted up and down the country. In some areas, there were noticeably fewer four-day working opportunities.
The Welsh capital, Cardiff, had the lowest percentage of four-day workweek jobs on offer (0.4%), followed by Bristol (0.63%), and Preston (0.68%).
Senior positions are more likely to get a four-day workweek
While HR assistants and marketing executives have more four-day workweek jobs than their managerial counterparts, this trend isn’t common across all jobs.
Mid-senior level positions were more likely to have a four-day work week compared to entry-level positions. Out of all four-day workweek jobs where seniority was able to be identified 57.4% of jobs were for mid-senior level positions while 42.6% were for entry-level positions.
Those with a four-day workweek earn slightly less
On average, of the four-day workweek capable jobs we analysed, those who worked a full five-day job week earned an average of £47,043, while those jobs where a four-day workweek was advertised earned £45,472.
Of the over 46,000 job adverts analysed that means the benefit of a four-day workweek often comes at the cost of a 3.3% pay decrease – which for some will be a price they’re willing to pay.
Methodology
A total of 46,079 job adverts were analysed from Linkedin jobs across various cities throughout the United Kingdom collected from 8th Feb – 8th March 2024. Using AI and a bespoke language processing tool, we then analysed these job listings to see how many adverts discussed four-day work weeks, 30-hour weeks and similar.
The job boards analysed to build a list of four-day work week capable jobs were: Four Day Week, 4 Day Week, and Flexa jobs. Average salary data came from talent.com.
The jobs analysed were: account executive, account manager, accountant, AI engineer, bookkeeper, business development executive, buyer, CCTV officer, communications manager, content creator, copywriter, credit controller, customer service advisor/specialist, customer support manager, data analyst, data scientist, fashion designer, finance assistant, fundraising organizer, graphic designer, head of finance, head of operations, hiring manager, HR assistant, HR manager, iOS engineer, management consultant, market trader, marketing executive, marketing manager, Net Zero officer, NPD manager, office administrator, operations executive, people and culture manager, PHP developer, PPC, press officer, product manager, public relations manager, quality inspector, receptionist, recruitment consultant, sales manager, sales support, secretary, security engineer, security officer, SEO manager, social media manager, social worker, software engineer, solicitor, supply chain manager, traders, UX designer, UX engineer, web developer, and work coach.
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