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What if I worked four days a week?

How do days, hours and free weekdays compare if a working week is shorter?

A four-day week is often discussed as a policy, a perk or a productivity bet. This page does none of that. It compares two working patterns you type in — typically five days against four — and reports the estimated difference in days, hours and free weekdays across a year after holiday weeks. UK statutory paid leave is commonly described as 5.6 weeks for someone working five days, including bank holidays if the employer counts them that way; you can change that figure. Nothing here is a statement about pay, contracts, opt-outs, or whether an employer must agree. Compressed hours and reduced hours look different; the sliders let you see either, as a calendar comparison only.

Change this

Results update as you move the controls.

5days
4days
7.5hours

Held the same in both patterns unless you change it.

5.6weeks

UK statutory paid leave is often quoted as 5.6 weeks.

Your result

46.4

estimated extra free weekdays a year

46.4 working weeks after 5.6 holiday weeks.

Current working days
232

5 days × 46.4 weeks.

New working days
185.6
Current hours
1,740 h
New hours
1,392 h

348 fewer hours a year at this day length.

What does that mean?

This is a calendar comparison of the estimated difference, not a verdict on the better working pattern and not a statement of employment rights or pay. At 7.5 hours a day and 5.6 holiday weeks, the new pattern is 185.6 working days (1,392 hours) against 232 days (1,740 hours) now.

At a glance

  • Current days / year232
  • New days / year185.6

Compare

Working weeks46.4
Days each week now → new5 → 4
Annual hours now → new1,740 → 1,392

Compare scenarios

Days and hours are not the same lever

Dropping a day while keeping 7.5 hours on the remaining days is a cut in annual hours. Dropping a day while raising hours per day toward ten is closer to a compressed pattern: similar hours, a different shape. ONS figures on actual hours worked are a national backdrop, not your rota. Move both sliders if you want to see the distinction clearly.

Free weekdays, not “time off in the legal sense”

The extra free weekdays are simply current days minus new days, multiplied by working weeks. They are calendar squares, not additional statutory leave. Weekends are unchanged unless you currently work them. The experiment does not convert those weekdays into money, leisure quality or childcare cover.

Holiday weeks change the denominator

GOV.UK describes statutory paid holiday as 5.6 weeks for most workers, with a 28-day cap that matters if someone works six days. Employers may include bank holidays inside that figure. Using 5.6 as a default keeps the working year honest; raising it toward eight weeks (a more generous package) shrinks both patterns in parallel, so the gap in days is a little smaller.

How we calculated this

Working weeks = 52 − holiday weeks (floored at zero). Current days per year = current days × working weeks; likewise for the new pattern. Hours follow days × hours per day. Extra free weekdays = (current days − new days) × working weeks. Hours per day are held constant unless you change them — this is not an automatic compressed-hours conversion. The calculation is a count of weekdays and hours only.

Go further

A curated rabbit hole from this question. Each link is a real experiment, not a random suggestion.

  1. 01 · Your LifeHow Much of Your Life Is Weekends?
  2. 02 · Your LifeHow Much of Your Life Have You Spent Working?
  3. 03 · Your LifeWhat If You Gained One Extra Hour Every Day?
  4. 04 · Your LifeWhat If You Lived to 100?

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