Work Pattern Comparator
Compare annual hours, workdays, commute journeys, commute cost and committed time across two work patterns.
Open calculator →Choose the comparison that matches the decision
Use the Work Pattern Comparator when both patterns differ in several ways. Use the 4-Day vs 5-Day Week calculator for a pay-versus-time trade-off, and the Compressed vs Reduced Hours calculator when the important question is whether weekly paid hours stay the same.
- Use contracted weekly hours, not a typical busy week’s hours.
- Count commute journeys only for days that normally require travel.
- Compare holiday in hours when the working-day lengths differ.
- Keep salary, hours and working weeks on the same annual basis.
Worked comparison: 37.5 hours across four or five days
Suppose a full-time contract contains 37.5 paid hours a week. Compressing those hours into four days changes the length of each workday but does not, by itself, reduce the weekly total. A genuine reduction to 30 hours is a different proposal.
| Pattern | Weekly hours | Days | Average hours per day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Five-day baseline | 37.5 | 5 | 7.5 |
| Four-day compressed | 37.5 | 4 | 9.375 |
| Four-day reduced | 30 | 4 | 7.5 |
In the compressed case, one weekly commute disappears but the same paid hours are spread over longer days. In the reduced case, the day length stays at 7.5 hours, but annual hours and possibly pay fall by 20%. That distinction also matters when comparing leave packages: 25 days at 7.5 hours is 187.5 hours, while 25 days at 9.375 hours is 234.375 hours.
Check the proposal wording
“Four-day week” can describe either arrangement. Confirm the contractual weekly hours, pay, breaks, normal days and how leave is recorded before treating two offers as equivalent.
What the results do — and do not — tell you
These tools show arithmetic consequences of the figures entered. They do not decide whether a proposed pattern complies with working-time rules, whether a flexible-working request should be accepted or how a contract must be interpreted.