The UK may be considered to have a more lenient attitude towards achieving a fair work/life balance than many other countries in the UK, but that’s not to say that our workers don’t put in huge amounts of time, effort, and energy into creating the thriving business hubs that populate many major cities throughout the country.
In 2023, the average working week for full-time workers in the UK was 36.4 hours - but how do these figures compare on a regional or even local authority level? Moneyzine.com compared over 50 of the largest cities and towns across the UK using eight key metrics to find the official ranking of the hardest-working cities in the UK. We’ve included data points from the average weekly hours worked to the average leisure time an individual has each day to find this definitive ranking.
Note: The direct and indirect factors columns are listed by rank, with 1 being the best overall score for that set of conditions. Only the overall score column reflects the total score the city received based on our point system.
Main Findings
London may be seen as the hub of the UK for hustle culture, so it may shock everyone to find out that the city that came out as the hardest-working place in the UK was, in fact, Slough.
Located in Berkshire, 20 miles west of London, Slough doesn’t necessarily have the best reputation. It was ranked fourth in I Live Here’s ultimate ranking of the worst cities to live in the UK in 2023. With that said, however, the city can applaud itself for having the hardest-working people in the UK with the top spot of our ranking.
Workers in Slough have an average working week of 37.5 hours, higher than any other city ranked. The town also scores highly for labour productivity, while 59% of people in the region have also volunteered in their spare time.
Another surprise city takes the second spot. Exeter, in South West England, scores as the second hardest-working city in the UK, followed by London in third.
This definitive ranking takes the average workweek, productivity, employment rate, and a range of other factors into account to deliver the ultimate ranking of the hardest-working individuals in the UK.
The caveat, of course, are the multitude of other factors that need to be considered alongside this ranking. We may have found the hardest working city, but it’s worth considering where we draw the line between hard working and over worked.Jonathan Merry, CEO of Moneyzine.com
Exeter score highest for direct factors
Interestingly, Exeter comes out as the hardest working city for just the direct factors in our ranking, followed by Slough, Gloucester, and Cambridge.
Exeter has one of the lowest claimant count percentages, at just 2%, and one of the lowest counts of idle youths, claiming the maximum possible points in our ranking.
London scores top for indirect factors
On the other hand, when singling out the indirect factors from our ranking - volunteering, commute time, and average leisure time - London ranks first. Londoners have the longest average commute time (85 minutes) than any other city.
Combined with an average workweek of 36.5 hours and an average leisure time per day of just 4.8 hours, it’s no surprise that the busy capital of the UK ranks in the top three for hardest working cities.
Working hard or hardly working?
At the other end of the scale, Liverpool was ranked as the least hard-working city in our ranking of 51 cities and towns. Scoring just 36 points out of a possible 10, Liverpool has one of the lowest average working weeks (35 hours), and has one of the highest percentages of idle youth (17.2%).
Also in the bottom five were Leicester, Glasgow, Crawley, and Swansea. The bottom five cities all have average work week hours of 36 hours or less - with Crawley having an average work week of just 33.4 hours.
Hardest-Working Cities in the UK Ranked
Methodology
In order to find the hardest-working city or town in the UK, Moneyzine.com compared over 50 of the largest cities in the UK across eight different ranking factors, grouped by “Direct Factors” and “Indirect Factors”, which we’ve detailed below.
We calculated the hardest working cities in the UK using 11 key metrics, which were then calculated on a 100-point scale broken down across each factor- both direct (for a total of 80 points) and indirect (for a total of 20 points). Below you can find the full details of the key metrics can were included in our ranking and their corresponding weights for the overall score.
Some data is only available at a regional level, rather than by local authority. We’ve marked these data points with an asterisk(*).
Direct Factors (80 points)
Average workweek hours: Double Weight (32 points)
Claimant count: Full weight (16 points)- This measures the percentage of people claiming unemployment related benefits
Workless households: Full weight (16 points)
Idle Youth (16 - 24 years)*: Half weight (8 points)- Idle youth are counted as 16 - 24 year olds not currently in education, employment, or training (NEET)
Labour productivity: Half weight (8 points)- Productivity is calculated by gross value added (GVA) per hour worked and GVA per filled job.
Indirect Factors (20 points)
Average commute time in minutes: Full weight (~6.66 points)
% of community that have volunteered*: Full weight (~6.66 points)
Average leisure time in hours per day*: Full weight (6.66 points)
Sources:
Data for the average workweek hours, labour productivity, NEET 16 - 24 year olds, average leisure time, and workless households was sourced from the latest data available from the ONS.
Claimant count data was sourced from Centre for Cities.
Average commute time was sourced from a study of 2,000 UK full-time adults by MoneyBarn.
Volunteering statistics were sourced from Statista.
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