Four-day week ‘will be the norm in ten years'

Times

5 days ago

Professor Brendan Burchell's tranquil office on a Cambridge University staircase seems an unlikely staging ground for a revolution in how we live and earn, but his research may help transform how — and how much — the country works.
Burchell, an expert on labour markets and a fellow of Magdalene College, is a key voice in the growing debate over the merits of a four-day week. As trials proliferate across both the private and public sectors, he believes that a shift has begun.
'In ten years' time, a four-day week will be the norm,' he predicts. 'If any organisation advertises a five-day role, no one will apply — why would you?'
For two years, the veteran sociologist has been studying the UK's most extensive public-sector pilot, run by South Cambridgeshire district council. The data now spans 27 months. The results are, in Burchell's words, 'phenomenal'. The council has reported improvements in staff recruitment and retention, cost savings estimated at £400,000 a year and better or stable performance on most of the services that were monitored — all while employees worked one day less every week with no loss of pay.
The scheme, which the council voted last month to make permanent, follows the so-called 100-80-100 model: 100 per cent of pay, 80 per cent of the hours, 100 per cent of the original productivity. It is not about squeezing the hours of a conventional working week into fewer, longer days and it covers the entire workforce.
These details seem important. Burchell's research has shown that benefits to worker wellbeing diminish if a shorter working week involves a pay cut, or if most of your colleagues still work five days. His findings also suggest that the mental health benefits of work plateau after surprisingly few hours.
In 2019, he published a study exploring the idea of an 'optimal dose' of employment. Unexpectedly, the data suggested that one day a week was enough to confer the psychological rewards associated with work, which stem from structured routines, social connections, the sense of contributing to a collective venture and building an identity.
'It doesn't have to be a great job,' he says. 'Even average jobs are good for you — but only up to a point.'
In South Cambridgeshire, critics — including Conservative councillors — have argued that the four-day week shortchanges taxpayers while making it harder to deliver for residents. But a recent report co-authored by Burchell suggested that the feared drop in productivity had not materialised. 'The idea that you can reduce hours by 20 per cent and maintain output sounds too good to be true,' he concedes. 'But case after case, that's exactly what we're seeing.'
So what is holding Britain back? Partly, he believes, it is culture. 'The work ethic is incredibly deeply embedded,' he says. 'People see being busy as virtuous.'
This mindset, rooted in centuries of Protestant tradition and reinforced by the modern cult of productivity, may, he says, help to explain the criticism the South Cambridgeshire trial has encountered. Although early media coverage of private-sector trials was largely positive, the council faced fierce political attacks. Burchell describes the scrutiny as 'vicious', a backlash that has chilled interest among other local authorities.
Around the world, though, from Portugal to South Africa, companies and institutions are trialling four-day weeks and announcing positive results. In the UK, the model is gaining momentum among companies grappling with recruitment challenges, burnout and low morale. Burchell is now collaborating with health economists to explore applications within the NHS, where recruitment crises and burnout are endemic.
• The Times View: Four-day week for council workers sets a disastrous example
He acknowledges that not all jobs fit neatly into the four-day model. Nurses, delivery drivers and other frontline workers cannot drop a day without adjustments elsewhere. But he argues that change is still feasible. 'You need to think about how the whole system changes,' he says. 'And remember, a lot of the people who are economically inactive are qualified professionals who left because the job became intolerable.'
It was only in the mid-20th century that the UK transitioned from a six-day to a five-day week, a change that was met with furious resistance at the time but is now taken for granted. Burchell suspects we are now at a similar crossroads.
'Our great-grandparents did in a week what we now do in a day. So why are we still working the same hours?' he asks.
Part of the answer may lie in consumer culture, rising housing costs and entrenched managerial models. But Burchell suspects something deeper is also at play: a collective inability to reimagine how we divide our time. 'Most of us,' he says, 'still think of the five-day week as natural, as if it's encoded in the human condition. It's not.'