Working patterns of full-time and part-time employees
Estimates of full-time and part-time employees working patterns from the Labour Force Survey
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Headline facts and figures
The analysis shows that around 84% of full-time employees work weekday-only patterns. This compares with around 67% of part-time employees working weekday-only patterns.
Numbers of full-time and part-time employees by working pattern
Methodology and data sources
This analysis used the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Labour Force Survey (LFS) person data sets for Quarter 2 2025 (based on interviews taking place from April to June 2025). The population were employees in the UK that were aged 16 to 64 years who were recorded as working full-time or part-time.
“Weekday only” figures are calculated based on survey respondents who had a valid usual-working-days response of "Monday-Friday only" or "One-four weekdays only". The "Includes weekend" work pattern includes usual-working-days responses of "Monday-Friday plus weekend", "One-four weekdays plus weekend" and "Weekend only".
The LFS data is weighted in line with LFS weighting factors and methodology to allow the sample to provide estimates relating to the total population and to minimise non-response bias. Full-time/Part-time employment and working patterns are based on respondents' self-classification. LFS estimates are currently not considered accredited official statistics and are designated as official statistics in development. Caution is therefore advised when using the data.
Here the usual working patterns were constructed from the seven day-specific variables WCHMO, WCHTU, WCHWE, WCHTH, WCHFR, WCHSA and WCHSU. Respondents were retained where all seven-day flags contained valid Yes/No values and at least one day was recorded as a usual working day. This excludes a small group of respondents with “not applicable” recorded for days of the week they normally work on, but whose individual day-specific variables indicated they usually work on all seven days.
Five mutually exclusive categories were constructed:
- Monday-Friday only;
- Monday-Friday plus weekend;
- one-four weekdays only;
- one-four weekdays plus weekend; and
- weekend only.
For the headline comparison, these five categories were collapsed to two broader groups. Weekday only combines Monday-Friday only with one-four weekdays only. Includes weekends combines Monday-Friday plus weekend, one-four weekdays plus weekend and weekend only, meaning the respondent usually works on Saturday and/or Sunday.
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