Maximum average weekly working hours

The average hours a worker may not exceed over the reference period, and the only working-time limit an individual can agree out of.

48hours

Primary source only Statutory Instrument Great Britain in force since 1998-10-01

Checked against its sources: statute verified 2026-09-21

Scope: 48 hours as a 17-week AVERAGE, so a 60-hour week breaks nothing on its own. It is the one working-time limit with an INDIVIDUAL opt-out: since SI 1999/3372 the paragraph applies unless the employer has the worker's written agreement to work beyond it, and regulation 4(2) then requires up-to-date records of who has agreed. Regulation 25A(1) substitutes 52 hours for the 48 in the doctors-in-training modification it describes, which is a different figure and a spent one. The night worker's separate eight-hour average is Night work: average hours limit, and a young worker's hard 40-hour week is Young workers: maximum weekly hours.

Current sources

Source A · Legislationhttps://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/1833/made (SI 1998/1833 reg 4(1) as made: "Subject to regulation 5, a worker's working time, including overtime, in any reference period which is applicable in his case shall not exceed an average of 48 hours for each seven days"; in force 1 October 1998, reg 1(1))

retrieved 2026-09-11

History

Value	From	To	Status	Sources
48	1998-10-01	—	Primary source only	Legislation: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/1833/made (SI 1998/1833 reg 4(1) as made: "Subject to regulation 5, a worker's working time, including overtime, in any reference period which is applicable in his case shall not exceed an average of 48 hours for each seven days"; in force 1 October 1998, reg 1(1)) retrieved 2026-09-11

Receipt

Everything above is reproducible and independently checkable — no trust in this site required (how verification works).

Figure ID: employment.working_time.max_weekly_hours
Name in the API: Maximum weekly working time: average hours limit
Record fields (source type · unit · jurisdiction · status): si·hours·GB·single_source_A
Record hash (canonical JSON, SHA-256): sha256:54833558ddac3590c42cf5955b67260bb85d8f5cfdcc21905699e2bda0370b76
Source snapshots (SHA-256): Legislation: sha256:702d61bf3f06765266766b01fd082464b0d0750526f6a1d8019d63ab3a2c9c26
Listed in the signed manifest: release 3.0.0 manifest · record_hashes["employment.working_time.max_weekly_hours"]
Machine-readable record: /v1/figures/employment.working_time.max_weekly_hours · current only: /v1/figures/employment.working_time.max_weekly_hours/current

Compiler's notes

An SI carry (ADR-0014), and a HOST-STATES one under D18 §2: SI 1999/3372 reg 3(1)(a) substituted the OPENING WORDS of regulation 4(1) — "Subject to regulation 5" — and its located span prints no part of the 48 hours, so the amendment touched other words of the provision and not the value. That relief is why this row exists: on 2026-09-11 it read MISFILED in both directions and was written up as a finding rather than authored (5b52432), because the setter's as-made text does not carry the value either — SI 1999/3372 prints "48 hours" only in its explanatory note. The 1998 Regulations' own as-made text is the frozen witness, both documents are hashed here, and Gate 2 recomputes the relief rather than trusting it. No archived GOV.UK page states the limit, so the record is single_source_A by design.