There are 253 working days in United Kingdom in 2026, counting Monday to Friday and excluding 8 public holidays that fall on a weekday. That is from 365 calendar days, with 104 weekend days removed.
Working days
253
Mon–Fri, holidays removed
Weekend days
104
Saturdays + Sundays
Weekday holidays
8
0 more fall on weekends
Avg / month
21.1
working days per month
| Month | Days | Weekends | Holidays | Working days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 31 | 9 | 1 | 21 |
| February | 28 | 8 | 0 | 20 |
| March | 31 | 9 | 0 | 22 |
| April | 30 | 8 | 2 | 20 |
| May | 31 | 10 | 2 | 19 |
| June | 30 | 8 | 0 | 22 |
| July | 31 | 8 | 0 | 23 |
| August | 31 | 10 | 1 | 20 |
| September | 30 | 8 | 0 | 22 |
| October | 31 | 9 | 0 | 22 |
| November | 30 | 9 | 0 | 21 |
| December | 31 | 8 | 2 | 21 |
| Total | 365 | 104 | 8 | 253 |
These are the 8 public holidays in United Kingdom that land on a weekday in 2026 and therefore remove a working day. Holidays that fall on a weekend are not listed here because they do not change the working-day total.
The 253 working days shown above are the 365 calendar days of 2026, minus the 104 Saturdays and Sundays, minus the 8 public holidays that land on a weekday. Holidays that fall on a Saturday or Sunday are not subtracted, because they do not remove a day anyone would have worked; in 2026 that applies to 0 of United Kingdom's public holidays. At a standard eight-hour day, 253 working days works out to roughly 2,024 working hours across the year, before any annual leave is taken.
Working days in UK statute usually mean any day other than Saturday, Sunday, Christmas Day, Good Friday and a bank holiday in the relevant part of the United Kingdom, the wording used in the Companies Act 2006 and the Civil Procedure Rules. The Working Time Regulations 1998 entitle workers to 5.6 weeks of paid annual leave, which can include bank holidays at the employer's discretion. Banking settlement follows the Bank of England's calendar, which tracks the bank holiday list. Scotland's bank holidays differ from England and Wales: 2 January is a Scottish bank holiday and Easter Monday is not.
The United Kingdom does not have public holidays in the continental sense. England and Wales recognise bank holidays under the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971, plus common-law holidays such as Christmas Day and Good Friday. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own statutory lists, which is why St Andrew's Day, Battle of the Boyne and the second January bank holiday appear on some calendars and not others. The Department for Business and Trade publishes the official schedule each year. Employers are under no statutory obligation to give workers paid leave on bank holidays; entitlement is whatever the employment contract specifies, set against the Working Time Regulations 5.6 weeks minimum.
This matters because the working-day total is not spread evenly. Some months in United Kingdom carry several public holidays while others have none, so the month-by-month table above is the figure to use for payroll runs, billing cycles, SLA windows, and project plans rather than a flat assumption of about 21.1 working days per month. A month with two weekday holidays can have several fewer working days than a clear one, which changes capacity planning and the realistic delivery date for anything scheduled in business days.
To see the individual dates, the day of the week each holiday lands on, and the full official list, open the United Kingdom holiday calendar for 2026. You can subscribe to those dates as an .ics feed so they appear in your own calendar, or use the working-days-between-two-dates calculator to count business days for a specific date range rather than the whole year.
Working-day figures are computed from the public holiday list for United Kingdom (source: Nager.Date and the national references above) combined with a Monday-to-Friday business week. Regional holidays and substitute-day rules vary; confirm against the official calendar for legal or payroll use.