Latest figures show one in five UK employees receive overtime pay

Men are more likely to receive overtime pay than women – the analysis shows 22.3 percent of male workers earn overtime pay compared with 13.2 percent of female workers.

Nearly one in five employees receive overtime payments at work boosting their annual income, new analysis* conducted for specialist mortgage lender Kensington shows.

Its analysis of Government data shows 17.7 percent of UK workers – the equivalent of 5.49 million people – receive overtime payments which could be worth up to £3,000 a year for someone working five hours overtime a week.

Men are more likely to receive overtime pay than women – the analysis shows 22.3 percent of male workers earn overtime pay compared with 13.2 percent of female workers.

And there are major regional differences across on the country on how many workers receive overtime pay – employees in Aberdeenshire are the most likely to receive overtime with 28.8 percent of workers qualifying compared with just 9.6 percent in Windsor & Maidenhead.

Kensington is highlighting the importance of overtime payments to household incomes as it warns that many mortgage lenders may not count overtime payments when deciding whether to lend to borrowers. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) data shows that overtime makes up 2.7 percent of total average earnings.

However someone on average weekly earnings of £518 working a 37.5 hour week would earn more than £3,000 putting in five hours of overtime for 45 weeks which can add substantially to their ability to borrow and afford a home.

“Many lenders will focus on basic pay and will not fully account for overtime or other regular payments in affordability their calculations,” says Keith Street of Kensington. “This can have a major impact someone’s ability to borrow enough to buy a home if their total income includes regular overtime payments and, as our research shows, it could prove a barrier to more than 5 million people.”

The tables below shows the top ten local authority regions for overtime and the ten local authority where workers are least likely to receive overtime.

Top ten regions for overtime

Bottom ten regions for overtime