Working week 'is getting longer'

New research has claimed that British employees now spend almost a day longer at work each week on average than they did in 1997.

According to a report from employment law firm Peninsula, 36 per cent of UK employees now work more than 48 hours per week, a figure which has increased by ten per cent in the last decade.

Head of HR business practice at the firm Alan Price said that people with manual occupations tend to be compensated for working longer hours, while the culture of unpaid overtime is more common in professional positions, such as finance jobs.

"The issue of working longer hours affects workers across the board, from the high flyers i.e. managers [and] professionals to workers in lower pay grades," he commented.

"Managers and professional staff work long hours in expectation of higher earnings in the future."

On average, male employees in the UK work three years longer before retiring than their counterparts in other European countries, according to recent findings from EU statistics agency Eurostat.