Guide
About the UK working days calculator
Working days are the days a business is normally open: Monday to Friday, excluding bank holidays. Working them out by hand means counting weekdays on a calendar, then remembering which bank holidays fall in the range and which part of the UK you are in. This working days calculator does all of that for you. Pick your part of the UK, enter two dates and it tells you the number of working days between them, along with the weekend days and bank holidays it skipped.
It is built only for the UK, so it uses the official GOV.UK bank holiday lists for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, including substitute days when a holiday falls on a weekend. That makes it useful for anyone who needs an accurate count of UK working days: payroll and HR teams, solicitors and conveyancers working to deadlines, contractors invoicing by the day, and employees planning annual leave.
How to use the working days calculator
- Choose your region: England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, so the right bank holidays are excluded.
- Pick a mode: “Count working days” counts between a start and end date; “Add / subtract days” finds the date a set number of working days before or after another date.
- Enter your dates. When counting, the start and end dates are both included by default. Untick either one if you need to.
- Adjust your working week (optional). Open “Working pattern, days off & hours” to set a part-time week, add annual leave or a shutdown, and change the hours per day.
- Read the result: total working days, working hours, weekend days, bank holidays and a month-by-month breakdown. Copy the link to share the exact same calculation.
How many working days in a year in the UK?
A normal year has 365 days, which is 52 weeks and one day, so it has 260 or 261 weekdays (a leap year can have 262). The number of working days in a year is the weekdays minus the bank holidays that fall on a weekday. England and Wales usually have 8 bank holidays, Scotland 9 and Northern Ireland 10, which is why the number of working days in the UK depends on where you work.
In 2026 there are 261 weekdays. Take away the bank holidays and there are 253 working days in 2026 in England and Wales, 251 in Scotland and 251 in Northern Ireland. 2027 has 261 weekdays, giving 253 working days in England and Wales, 252 in Scotland and 251 in Northern Ireland.
Many employers use 260 days (52 weeks of 5 days) as a standard working year for day rates and salary calculations, before bank holidays and annual leave are taken off. For the exact figure for a particular year, use the tables below or count from 1 January to 31 December in the calculator.
Number of working days UK 2026 per month
Working days per month in 2026 for each part of the UK, on a Monday to Friday week. Select a month for its calendar, bank holidays and working hours, or see the full 2026 working days breakdown.
| 2026 | England & Wales | Scotland | Northern Ireland |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 21 | 20 | 21 |
| February | 20 | 20 | 20 |
| March | 22 | 22 | 21 |
| April | 20 | 21 | 20 |
| May | 19 | 19 | 19 |
| June | 22 | 21 | 22 |
| July | 23 | 23 | 22 |
| August | 20 | 20 | 20 |
| September | 22 | 22 | 22 |
| October | 22 | 22 | 22 |
| November | 21 | 20 | 21 |
| December | 21 | 21 | 21 |
| Total | 253 | 251 | 251 |
Number of working days UK 2027 per month
Working days per month in 2027 for each part of the UK, on a Monday to Friday week. Select a month for its calendar, bank holidays and working hours, or see the full 2027 working days breakdown.
| 2027 | England & Wales | Scotland | Northern Ireland |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 20 | 19 | 20 |
| February | 20 | 20 | 20 |
| March | 21 | 22 | 20 |
| April | 22 | 22 | 22 |
| May | 19 | 19 | 19 |
| June | 22 | 22 | 22 |
| July | 22 | 22 | 21 |
| August | 21 | 21 | 21 |
| September | 22 | 22 | 22 |
| October | 21 | 21 | 21 |
| November | 22 | 21 | 22 |
| December | 21 | 21 | 21 |
| Total | 253 | 252 | 251 |
Non-working days in the UK
Non-working days are all the days that don’t count as working days. For most people in the UK that means:
- Saturdays and Sundays
- bank holidays for your part of the UK, including substitute days
- weekdays you don’t normally work, if you work part-time or compressed hours
- days your workplace is closed, such as between Christmas and New Year
Bank holidays are the non-working days that differ most across the UK. Scotland has 2 January and St Andrew’s Day but no Easter Monday, while Northern Ireland adds St Patrick’s Day and the Battle of the Boyne. There is no legal right to have bank holidays off, but most employers treat them as non-working days. See UK bank holidays 2026 for every date.
Convert hours to working days
Sometimes you start with hours rather than days: a project estimate, time off in lieu or a holiday allowance given in hours. To convert hours to working days, divide the hours by the length of your working day. A standard full-time day in the UK is 7.5 hours (a 37.5-hour week) or 8 hours (a 40-hour week), so 30 hours is 4 working days at 7.5 hours a day, or 3.75 working days at 8 hours.
5 working days (1 working week)
The working days calculator also works the other way. Set the hours per working day under “Working pattern, days off & hours” and it shows the total working hours for your dates.
Working days, business days and calendar days
In the UK, working days and business days usually mean the same thing: Monday to Friday, not counting bank holidays. Calendar days include every day, weekends and holidays too. The difference matters for deadlines. Ten calendar days after a Friday is a Monday, but ten working days after a Friday is the Friday two weeks later, or later still if there’s a bank holiday. Contracts, statutory notices and delivery terms usually say which kind of day they mean, so check before you count. Read more in what counts as a working day, or use the add working days calculator to find a deadline.
Accurate, free and private
Bank holiday dates are checked against GOV.UK, which publishes them about two years ahead. For later years the calculator applies the standard rules and tells you the result is an estimate. Everything runs in your browser, so the calculator is fast, free to use and private: there’s no sign-up and your dates never leave your device.