# How many people work night shifts UK: Shift Work Prevalence

> The median published figure in the Shift Work Prevalence is 22.50 percent across 2 sources' own pages (range 19 to 26 percent), read 12 October 2026.

Shift Pattern Generator · https://shiftpatterngenerator.co.uk/datasets/shift-work-prevalence/ · computed 2026-10-22

**Median published figure:** 22.5 % (range 19 to 26 %; 2 published figures; 2 of 7 sources read publish one).

2 of the 7 named sources read in full publish a figure; 5 publish none, read 12 October 2026.

The median is unchanged since 26 September 2026 (was 22.50 percent across 2).

## Every figure, with its source

One row per source: the figure the source's own page publishes, the page, and the day it was read.

| Source | Figure | Read |
|---|---|---|
| [Greater London Authority - evening and night workers in London](https://data.london.gov.uk/blog/evening-and-night-workers-in-london/) | 26 % | 2026-10-12 |
| [TUC - the health and safety impacts of night working](https://www.tuc.org.uk/research-analysis/reports/health-and-safety-impacts-night-working) | 19 % | 2026-10-12 |

## The sentence each figure was read from (2)

- [Greater London Authority - evening and night workers in London](https://data.london.gov.uk/blog/evening-and-night-workers-in-london/), read 2026-10-12: "Around 1 in 4 (26%) people working in London were E&N workers in 2022."
- [TUC - the health and safety impacts of night working](https://www.tuc.org.uk/research-analysis/reports/health-and-safety-impacts-night-working), read 2026-10-12: "In 2017 19% of those in employment were engaged in shift work, 20% of males and 17% of females (ONS, 2018)."

## Read in full, publishes no figure

- [ONS - Labour market overview, UK](https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/uklabourmarket/march2026), read 2026-09-12: every candidate on the page was refused
- [ONS - HOUR01 SA: actual weekly hours worked (dataset)](https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/datasets/actualweeklyhoursworkedseasonallyadjustedhour01sa), read 2026-10-12: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- [HSE - shift work and fatigue: common risks](https://www.hse.gov.uk/humanfactors/topics/shift-workers.htm), read 2026-10-12: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- [HSE - health and safety statistics](https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/), read 2026-09-12: read in full and no accepted figure on the page
- [TUC - 260,000 more people working at night in past five years](https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/260000-more-people-working-night-past-five-years-finds-tuc), read 2026-09-12: every candidate on the page was refused

## Methodology

Every row is a verbatim sentence read from the named source's own page through our fetch service on the date shown, hash-pinned to the stored read (the sha of the page's visible text; the raw page is mirrored to R2). 2 of the 7 named sources that could be read published a usable figure; 5 published none and are recorded as not published, never filled in; 1 could not be read (blocked, dead or unreachable) and count nowhere. The headline figures (median, minimum, maximum, quartiles) are over ONE figure per source in % (a source's median where its page yielded several accepted sentences), so N counts sources, never sentences; 53 candidate sentence(s) were refused by a reviewer with the reason recorded. The fuller derivation this dataset is chartered to grow into (not yet what the figures above are; they are each source's own published figure as read): the shift-work and night-work counts and shares from the official series, carried release by release with their definitions attached, so a pattern page can open on a measured figure ('5 million shift workers', HSE) rather than an assertion; the derivation is the comparison the publishers do not make - the official count beside the union's own Labour Force Survey analysis and the sub-national reading, each labelled with whose number it is, and the change over time computed on one consistent definition.

## Sources

- [ONS - Labour market overview, UK](https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/uklabourmarket/march2026) (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- [ONS - HOUR01 SA: actual weekly hours worked (dataset)](https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/datasets/actualweeklyhoursworkedseasonallyadjustedhour01sa) (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- [HSE - shift work and fatigue: common risks](https://www.hse.gov.uk/humanfactors/topics/shift-workers.htm) (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- [HSE - health and safety statistics](https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/) (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- [Greater London Authority - evening and night workers in London](https://data.london.gov.uk/blog/evening-and-night-workers-in-london/) (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- [TUC - the health and safety impacts of night working](https://www.tuc.org.uk/research-analysis/reports/health-and-safety-impacts-night-working) (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- [TUC - 260,000 more people working at night in past five years](https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/260000-more-people-working-night-past-five-years-finds-tuc) (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)
- [ons.gov.uk](https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours) (the publisher's own terms; quoted for reporting and comment)

## Cite or embed

- The median published figure in the Shift Work Prevalence is 22.50 percent across 2 sources' own pages (range 19 to 26 percent), read 12 October 2026.
- 2 of the 7 named sources read in full publish a figure; 5 publish none, read 12 October 2026.
- The median is unchanged since 26 September 2026 (was 22.50 percent across 2).

Cite as: "shiftpatterngenerator.co.uk Shift Work Prevalence", updated 2026-10-22, https://shiftpatterngenerator.co.uk/datasets/shift-work-prevalence/.

CSV: https://shiftpatterngenerator.co.uk/datasets/shift-work-prevalence.csv
JSON: https://shiftpatterngenerator.co.uk/datasets/shift-work-prevalence.json
Embed (plain HTML, static link back): see https://shiftpatterngenerator.co.uk/datasets/shift-work-prevalence/#median