Calculating your working time

Calculating your working time

To know how long you are working, you need to calculate the number of hours you work each week (including overtime) and then average these hours over a set period.

Your average working hours are calculated over a ‘reference period’, which is normally a 17-week period. You can work more than 48 hours in one week, as long as the average over 17 weeks is less than 48 hours per week.

Changing the average working time reference period

With a workforce or collective agreement you can agree with your employer to calculate the average weekly working time over a different period, anything up to 52 weeks. These are agreements that have been reached between an employer and a trade union. Your contract of employment will probably set out which collective agreements cover you.

Some careers automatically have a different reference period:

    doctors in training have a 26 week reference period
    the offshore sector has a 52 week reference period