Unpaid overtime costs IT workers £5k per year

New research from the TUC suggests IT professionals put in an average of six hours' unpaid overtime a week

IT professionals work an extra six hours per week in unpaid overtime, a new report from the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has revealed.

The TUC released the figures on the eve of its Work Your Proper Hours Day initiative on 23 February. The union encouraged workers to take a full lunch break and leave work on time, and called on employers to take staff out to lunch or for an after-work drink as recompense for the unpaid labour.

According to the research, senior IT professionals lose out on more than £5,000 per year, based on the average hourly rate. However, the six hours and six minutes of overtime worked each week represents a drop of 36 minutes compared to five years ago.

More junior IT staff working in service delivery roles put in an average of four-and-a-half hours in unpaid overtime each week, which would account for an extra £2,900 per year if they received overtime payment.

However, the IT industry compares favourably to the average amount of unpaid overtime across all sectors, which stands at more than 7 hours per week per worker, according to the TUC.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said the Work Your Proper Hours Day initiative represented an opportunity to consider work/life balance in every sector in the UK.

“The best we can say is that our long hours culture is not getting any worse, and there are some real, but slow, signs of progress in IT over the last five years,” Barber argued. “But we need to speed this up. Regular excess unpaid overtime is a recipe for burn-out and inefficiency. It is working stupid not working smart.”

Barber added that while most staff were happy to put in extra hours on an ad hoc basis due to an emergency or extra workload, it should not be a regular, weekly occurrence.
Paul Sellers, a policy advisor at the TUC, added that the organisation had been “slightly surprised” about the IT sector results. “What we think is happening is that IT workers are in high demand and so will be in a strong position to bargain [over work hours],” he explained.

Extending flexible working opportunities to all employees could help reduce the amount of unpaid overtime in the UK, according to Sellers. “IT has a strong role to play in tackling the long hours culture,” he added. “Technology enables a lot of jobs to be done from home.”