What Percentage of Your Life Will You Spend at Work?

The average person in the U.K. will spend 19.6% of their total waking hours at work based on a life expectancy of 79.05 years. Based on a 50 year full-time working life they will spend 29.4% of their waking hours during their working life at work.

NB – I’ve limited my definition of work to mean ‘paid employment’! 

What percentage of your life will you spend at work?

If you work for the entirety of your adult life until pensionable age in the UK then you will be engaged in some form of paid employment from the age of 18 years to of age to 68 years of age, which is an equivalent of 50 years of paid-employment.

If we take the average amount of hours worked per week, which was 36.5 hours February to May 2022 according to the Average actual weekly hours of work for full-time workers (seasonally adjusted) (1) then you will work a total of 85 775 hours in the course of your working life (based on a rough calculation of 36.5 hours *(52-5 = 47 weeks to take account of holidays)*50 years).

NB I used the February to May statistics because there has been a trend of increasing weekly hours since the end of the lockdowns during the Pandemic. The figures for summer-autumn 2022 are slightly lower, but the trend is up so I went with the highest post-pandemic figures for working hours.

Expressed as terms of a percentage of your life, this 36.5 hours a week spent working is equivalent to.

  • 12.4% of your total time over the course of a 79.05 year period (based on the average projected life expectancy of 79.05 for people born in the year 2005 according to a Google search for ‘Life expectancy UK’, accessed 27/11/2022).
  • 18.6% of your total time during the course of a 50 year working-life period.
  • 19.6% of your total waking hours over a 76 year lifespan, assuming 8 hours of sleep a night.
  • 29.4% of your total waking hours over a 50 year working-life period assuming 8 hours of sleep a night
  • 50% of your total waking hours during any given working day.

How to spend less time at work

Of course the above amount of time actually spent working will vary depending on a variety of factors, not least on your income and expenditure, but also on the generosity of your parents, any inheritance you might receive, returns on investments, and any time you spend on benefits, but the most crucial variable (or combination of variables) which determines how many hours you are going to work over the course of your life is, for most people, the amount of income you earn in relation to your expenditure.

In short, the less you spend in relation to your income, then the less income you need, and the fewer hours, days, weeks, months and years (whichever is the least painful way of counting it!) you will need to work.

The maths behind this (thanks to Jacob Lund Fisker) is actually surprisingly simple – If you take home £20 000 a year, spend £18 000 and save £2000, then it will take you 9 years to save up enough to live for a year (£2000 *9 = £18000).

If you can inverse this ratio, and save £18 000 a year and get used to living off only £2000 then if you work for one year you will have saved enough to live for another 9 years.

If you look at this over the course of a working life, if you can keep the first scenario up (saving £2000/ year) then over 45 years you would save enough to live off for five years, meaning you could retire 5 years earlier, at 62 years of age. In the second example, you could work for 5 years and then retire on your savings at the age of 23, albeit on a lower income.

The first ‘hypothetical’ example is pretty close to the norm in the UK today. In 2012-13 the average personal annual income after tax for the 50th percentile income-earner was £18 700, while the average annual expenditure for the middle quintile of single person households in 2013 was £16016, leaving a potential savings capacity of approximately £2700 a year for those of middling income and expenditure. (based on the ONS survey of personal income and Equivalised income.)

The second example above is, for most of us, going to remain hypothetical because it is just too extreme. However, consider the half way situation – If, on an average annual take-home salary of £20 000 you can learn to live off £10 000 a year and save £10 000 – you could potentially only work for 25 years…. meaning you could retire at age 43.

We work less today than in 2016

 I first wrote this post in 2016, when I was extremely disappointed with the results returned when I typed the question above into Google – so I thought I’d do the calculations myself.

Back in 2016 the stats below applied which were based on the annual survey of hours and earnings, when the total amount of working hours were 39.2 hours, or 92 120 hours over 50 years.

Back in 2016 this 39.2 hours a week spent working was equivalent to.

  • 14% of total time over the course of a 76 year period (based on the average then projected life expectancy of 76 for people born in the year 2000 according to the ONS’s National Life Tables for the United Kingdom.)
  • 23.3% of total time during the course of a 50 year working-life period
  • 21% of total waking hours over a 76 year lifespan, assuming 8 hours of sleep a night.
  • 35% of total waking hours over a 50 year working-life period assuming 8 hours of sleep a night.

So TLDR is that we’ve seen a reduction of working hours fro 35% of waking hours over 50 years to 29.4%

Back then I produced this infographic (updated for 2022 above!)

Average working hours UK
Signposting, Sources and Related Posts

(1) Office for National Statistics – Average actual weekly hours of work for full-time workers (seasonally adjusted)

(2) Google Search for ‘UK Life Expectancy‘ accessed 27/11/2022

If you like this sort of thing you might also like…

How to Avoid Working for a Living

Experiments in alternative living – or 5 ways to avoid spending less than £250K on housing

Comments

97 responses to “What Percentage of Your Life Will You Spend at Work?”

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  48. […] whether you are happy in your current job or career is still what you want to be doing as you spend 35% of your waking hours at work over a 50 year working career so no matter how much money you are making it’s worth considering if something better is out […]

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  54. Karl Thompson

    Hi – Karl Thompson

  55. Giselle Marrinan

    Who wrote the article on what percentage of your life will you spend at work?

  56. […] just how much of your life is actually spent at work (Spoiler alert: You’ll spend roughly 35% of your waking hours working). Shouldn’t you find contentment during that […]

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  58. […] there more than we’re home. In fact, over the course of a 50 year working life, about 35 percent of our waking hours are spent at work. So, it stands to reason that we can get pretty comfortable around the office, especially after […]

  59. […] is said that office workers spend around 92 – 120 hours working until they retire, which is about eight hours a day. But reports claim that people spend way too […]

  60. […] most people’s careers, they now spend more than a third of their waking hours at work. Estimates have the average person spending more than 90,000 hours at work over their lifetime, […]

  61. man it’d be great to get 5 weeks vacation a year I’m lucky If i get 1 week.

  62. […] relacjami. Moim HR’owym celem jest sprawić, żeby te godziny i lata (jak pisze autor 92 120 godzin )nie były torturą. Nie, nie zawsze są czystą przyjemnością, czasem po prostu są bezbolesnym […]

  63. […] 50% of your total waking hours during any given working day. ReviseSociology […]

  64. […] with passion can change the world for the better.” So, seriously, you spend around 35 percent of your life working. And if you check your emails on the subway and reach for your smartphone in […]

  65. […] thanks for ReviseSociology for doing some of the calculations for […]

  66. […] show that the average person will spend about 92,120 hours at the workplace. That’s a lot of […]

  67. […] Look at this breakdown on how much we work in our lives. The percentage in our lifetime that we spend working varies but it tends to be around 25-35%. That is a lot of time! If we spend that much time working it should be productive and sustainable. […]

  68. […] the hours you spend awake, nearly a third will be spent at work. This percentage can increase if you work a lot of overtime, work for yourself, or have multiple […]

  69. […] you are going to be working for on average 50% of the waking hours of your life you should do something meaningful, difficult and worthwhile. This, to me, is the […]

  70. […] of all UK workers regret their current career choice which is a great shame since we spend around 1,842 hours a year at […]

  71. […] average person working a traditional 9-5 job will spend 10.3 years working, or approximately 21% of their total waking hours over a 76-year lifespan. If you’re not careful, you can quickly become a slave to your job, whether you enjoy it or not. […]

  72. […] it's cliche, life is simply too short. You'll spend about 35% of your waking hours working, so why not take a shot at earning a living by doing what you […]

  73. […] interesting is that the average person spends 39.2 hours/day at work, which cumulates to 1,842 hours worked/year and 92,120 hours worked in a […]

  74. […] average person spends 39.2 hours/week at work, which adds up to 1,842 hours worked/year and 92,120 hours worked in a […]

  75. […] is one of the above. Anyone reading thinking of their boss? What’s interesting is that the average person spends 39.2 hours/day at work, which cumulates to 1,842 hours worked/year and 92,120 hours worked in a […]

  76. […] mind is one of the above. Anyone reading thinking of their boss? What’s interesting is that the average person spends 39.2 hours/day at work, which cumulates to 1,842 hours worked/year and 92,120 hours worked in a […]

  77. […] health, sometimes wearing them down until they literally can’t go on. Since people spend an average of 80-90,000 hours working over their lifetime, doesn’t it make sense to make that time as […]

  78. […] health, sometimes wearing them down until they literally can’t go on. Since people spend an average of 80-90,000 hours working over their lifetime, doesn’t it make sense to make that time as […]

  79. […] average, a person will spend a quarter of their life at work. That’s a lot of hours spent looking at the same boring gray walls of your office or cubicle. To […]

  80. […] ramifications for the environment and the economy. It has been estimated that we will spend around 20% of our waking hours at work. So since we spend a huge chunk of our lives at the office, it’s time that we start to think […]

  81. […] average office worker spends approximately 50% of their total waking hours in any given day at work. Given that this percentage is so high, it should come as no great […]

  82. […] and viruses around the tight space. Over the course of their life, the average employee will spend 57% of their waking hours at the office and will be bombarded daily by micro-organisms in the air. To help employees manage […]

  83. […] us spend the majority of our lives at work. Around 8 hours a day and 5 days a week. According to studies, 35% of our waking hours are spent working. Work gives us purpose, defines us and […]

  84. […] at the more luxurious end have mani-peds, and even massages on a regular basis.   We spend 1842 hours a year in work factoring in 5 weeks holiday per year. But the very activity we engage […]

  85. […] you are going to be working for on average 50% of the waking hours of your life you should do something meaningful, difficult and worthwhile. This, to me, is the […]

  86. […] you know that the average man spends approximately 35 percent of his lifetime […]

  87. […] all, on average we spend 23.3% of our total waking hours over a 50-year working life-period at work! That’s quite a lot, so you […]

  88. […] leaving school to the point you can retire under the current Australian laws means you’d work 45 – 50 years. That’s a total of approximately 90,000 […]

  89. […]  Want to know a secret?  Most of us spend close to 40% of our waking hours either working or commuting, so there’s nothing wrong with following your heart when it comes […]

  90. […] of their age, gender or profession deserve a great workplace. After all, on average we spend 23.3% of our total waking hours over a 50-year working life-period at work! That’s quite a lot, so you […]

  91. […] to Revise Sociology over a 50 year working period the average person will spend 35% of their waking hours working, and […]

  92. […] how much time are we actually spending doing things we loathe over things we love? According to Revise Sociology over a 50 year working period the average person will spend 35% of their waking hours working. This […]

  93. […] or getting a job particularly appealing, what if you don’t want to be normal and spend almost 100 000 hour over the course of your adult-life working to just earn money, what are the […]

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