Premium payments for staff working at night

IDR’s latest research on night working shows a slight increase in the median premium, up from 30% in 2022 to 33% in 2023. Our survey of 44 organisations in November and December 2023 examines how employers organise and compensate night work.

 Organising night work

 The widest ‘night windows’ – the time period classified as night work – are found within the housing and social care, and manufacturing and primary sectors at an average of 9 hours 51 minutes and 8 hours 55 minutes respectively.  Meanwhile the narrowest night windows are in retail and hospitality and 7 hours 20 minutes and 7 hours respectively. There has been little change in these average timeframes since we last conducted research in this area in early 2022. 

Around 90% of respondents schedule night working as permanent shifts with 69% of these operating permanent night shifts and 61% operating a pattern of rotating day/night shifts. (These totals exceed 100% as some organisations use multiple approaches).

Premiums for night shifts

The survey found that two-thirds of our respondents compensate night working for salaried roles by means of an annual shift premium calculated as a percentage of salary. This ranges from 12.5% to 35% and is worth 33% at the median – a slight increase from the 30% median value observed in 2022. Where employers instead pay shift premia as a fixed monetary amount each year, in our sample this is worth just over £5,000 at the median. For hourly-paid roles, it is more common (63% of respondents) to apply a percentage uplift (typically worth 30%) than a monetary premium (£1.71ph at the median). The former approach generally results in more generous premia in cash terms.

Difficulties staffing night shifts

The survey also explored recruitment or retention challenges relating to night shifts and other working patterns covering unsocial hours –weekends were commonly cited as difficult to fill, as well as late or ‘back’ shifts. However, in many cases respondents have not taken any steps to address these issues, with just 16% reporting that they have implemented specific incentives to attract more staff to work these shifts.

Just eight organisations (20% of those that answered this question, up from 12% in the previous survey) report that they offer some form of incentive or enhanced payment for covering shifts at short notice. In two cases, this is as part of standby and call-out arrangements, while several others compensate for this by means of enhanced overtime rates (often double time).

About the research

The sample covers a range of different sectors where night work is prevalent but with most responses coming from the private services and manufacturing and primary sectors (where night shifts are prevalent, to enable round-the-clock production) – 38% of respondents in each case. Respondents ranged in size from a small not-for-profit employer with 17 staff to a large private services company employing 159,000 people. The median headcount of organisations represented was 2,400, with the survey sample covering over 576,000 employees altogether.