Working Days Calculator UK
Add or subtract working days from any date. Accounts for UK bank holidays in England & Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.
Use a negative number to count backwards.
Enter a date and a number of working days.
How this calculator works
A working day in the UK is any weekday — Monday to Friday — that is not also a public bank holiday. This is the calendar most contracts, employment notice periods, payment terms, and court deadlines run on.
Bank holidays differ by region. England & Wales observes eight, Scotland nine, and Northern Ireland ten. When a bank holiday falls at a weekend, gov.uk allocates a substitute day on the following Monday (or Tuesday) — this calculator applies those substitutes automatically.
All calculations run in UTC to avoid daylight-saving edge cases. The underlying bank holiday data comes from the official gov.uk bank holidays feed.
Other calculators
Days between two dates
Working days, weekends, and calendar days between any two UK dates.
How many working days in 2026?
Annual and monthly working day counts for every UK region.
UK bank holidays 2026
Every bank holiday for E&W, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.
Business days calculator
The same calculator, framed for contracts and payment terms.
Common use cases
HR & employment
Notice periods, probationary periods, return-to-work dates, and SLA tracking for employee relations cases. Notice periods running in working days protect both employee and employer from weekends silently extending the period.
Legal practice
Service of documents, deemed-served deadlines, and court directions almost always run in working days. Conveyancing exchanges and completions are tracked in working days when there are bank holidays in between.
Finance & accounts payable
Net 30 working days is a common payment term. Bacs payments take three working days to clear, CHAPS settles same day. Use the calculator to project payment receipt dates and chase overdue invoices accurately.
Project management & construction
Construction programmes typically work in working days. Plan around bank holidays, especially the Easter and August clusters where two long weekends can compress a sprint or trade window.
Public sector & FOI
Freedom of Information requests run on 20 working days. Subject Access Requests under UK GDPR run on calendar days but practitioners often track both.
Frequently asked questions
What is a working day in the UK?+
A working day in the UK is normally a weekday (Monday to Friday) that is not also a public bank holiday. Saturdays and Sundays do not count as working days for most legal, payroll, and contractual purposes.
Do bank holidays count as working days?+
No. Bank holidays are non-working days for most employers, courts, and contracts. This calculator excludes them by default. You can change the region (England & Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland) because the dates and the set of holidays differ.
Is Saturday a working day in the UK?+
Not in the standard definition used for things like SLAs, payment terms, contract deadlines, and employment notice periods. Some industries (retail, hospitality) operate on Saturdays, but the legal and commercial default treats Saturday and Sunday as non-working days.
How many working days are in a year?+
It depends on the year and the region. England & Wales typically has 252–254 working days, Scotland slightly fewer due to extra holidays (St Andrew's Day, 2nd January), and Northern Ireland fewer still (St Patrick's Day, Battle of the Boyne). See our year-by-year breakdowns for exact counts.
When are UK bank holidays in 2026?+
England & Wales has eight: New Year's Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Early May (4 May), Spring (25 May), Summer (31 Aug), Christmas Day, and Boxing Day substitute (28 Dec). Scotland and Northern Ireland have additional dates. See the bank holiday pages for the full list per region.
Are bank holidays different in Scotland?+
Yes. Scotland does not observe Easter Monday but adds 2nd January and St Andrew's Day. The Summer bank holiday is the first Monday in August in Scotland (rather than the last Monday in England & Wales). Pick "Scotland" in the region selector to use the correct dates.
How do I calculate Net 30 working days?+
Use the calculator above. Enter the invoice or trigger date as the start date, enter 30 in the working days field, and pick the region whose calendar applies to the obligation. The result is the date by which payment or action is due.
Does this calculator include public holidays for Northern Ireland?+
Yes. Selecting Northern Ireland adds St Patrick's Day (17 March) and Battle of the Boyne (12 July) on top of the standard UK bank holidays, with substitute days applied automatically when these fall at a weekend.