How much are you paid to procrastinate?

How much time do you spend at work playing on your phone, taking leisurely trips to the toilet, daydreaming at your desk or gossiping in the kitchen?

We surveyed 2,000 full-time workers from across the UK to see just how much time we’re wasting at work. According to our findings, the average person spends 2 hours and 9 minutes each day procrastinating, which costs UK businesses over £21 billion* each year!

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Procrastination Nation

Take a look at how the average UK worker is wasting time and see how you compare.

Total minutes for one day

All
Male
Female
Go for a cigarette break
4 mins
7 mins
2 mins
Message on your phone
28 mins
28 mins
26 mins
Go on Instagram
7 mins
7 mins
6 mins
Go on Facebook
16 mins
18 mins
13 mins
Go on Twitter
5 mins
7 mins
2 mins
Read the news
15 mins
20 mins
9 mins
Daydream
20 mins
20 mins
19 mins
Online shopping
9 mins
10 mins
7 mins
Gossiping
18 mins
15 mins
22 mins
Go to the toilet for a poo
9 mins
13 mins
5 mins
Total
2hrs 11m
2hr 25m
1hr 51m

The average Brit spends 2 hours and 11 minutes a day procrastinating at work, including 28 minutes messaging others on their phones. 20 minutes are spent up in the clouds, daydreaming, and another 18 minutes are spent gossiping.

Men are the bigger time wasters, procrastinating for 2 hours 51 minutes each day, compared to just 1 hour 52 minutes for women.

Procrastination by City

Workers in Nottingham are doing their employers proud, with the lowest average time spent procrastinating a day, at just 1 hour and 18 minutes. Meanwhile, workers in Glasgow are procrastinating the most, taking a total of 3 hours and 4 minutes out of their day, and spending 37 minutes of this daydreaming.

Hover over the ranking number to see the average time spent procrastinating by city

  • Glasgow

  • Liverpool

  • London

  • Birmingham

  • Cardiff

  • Leeds

  • Manchester

  • Plymouth

  • Belfast

  • Sheffield

  • Newcastle

  • Brighton

  • Norwich

  • Bristol

  • Edinburgh

  • Southampton

  • Nottingham

Procrastination by Sector

Beauty workers are procrastinating the most, spending 46 minutes of their day gossiping, 38 minutes on Facebook and 45 minutes messaging others on their phones. At the other end of the scale, agriculture and environment workers are only procrastinating for 57 minutes in their busy days.

4hr 57mBeauty & Wellbeing

4hr 02mIT/Digital

3hr 38mArt & Design

3hr 34mConstruction

2hr 55mEnergy

2hr 29mEngineering

2hr 29mHealth and Social Care

2hr 13mTransport and Distribution

2hr 12mRetail & Customer Services

2hr 08mSports, Leisure and Tourism

2hr 07mSecurity & Emergency Services

2hr 03mHospitality

1hr 50mBusiness & Finance

1hr 45mScience & Mathematics

1hr 34mLaw, Politics & Government

1hr 16mChildcare & Education

57mAgriculture & Enviroment

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*Cost of procrastination to UK businesses based on 261 working days each year,
24,213,000 full-time workers and an average wage of £28,677.
Research based on survey of 2,010 full-time workers, ran with Censuswide in November 2019.

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