Man at His Best

If You Work Overtime, You've Been Working Up Until Today For Free This Year

Oh, delightful.

BY Catriona Harvey-Jenner | Mar 20, 2017 | Culture

If you work in a job that often requires you to stay late, come in early, or put in a few hours over the weekend, then you'll probably wince at what I'm about to tell you. On average, workers who put in overtime hours work a staggering 66 days of the year for free, which means you've effectively been working unpaid since the beginning of the year until today.

Well that's depressing.

The information comes from a recent survey by, which assessed 2,000 workers and used this information to create an 'overtime calculator' in which you can work out exactly how much you're being taken advantage of. Joyous.

The survey also revealed that almost 65% of people aren't being paid for overtime hours and - what a surprise! - more men get paid for their extra time than women do. 43% of men, on average, are paid for overtime worked compared to just 30% of women. Welcome to being a woman.

On average, each British worker slaves away for an additional 8.4 hours per week over and above their contracted hours - which is equivalent to more than an extra full working day. Employees based in main cities London and Birmingham tend to do more than that, however, racking up an average of 9.5 surplus hours a week.

But the careers that require their workers to put in the most overtime, according to the survey, might surprise you. Publishing and journalism industry workers apparently work the most overtime per week, with an average of 10.1 hours.

Second to that is the environment and agriculture industry, then hospitality and events management, followed by workers in energy and utilities companies. Surprisingly, bankers only came in a little further down the list, with an average of 8.2 extra hours per week.

But the point is, we all work too hard. So maybe it's about time you started fighting for your cause and getting paid for it?

From: Cosmo UK