UK worker spends over 2 hours procrastinating every day

The average UK worker spends just over 2 hours procrastinating at work, costing businesses £21 billion each year.

musicMagpie, a platform that allows you to sell your CDs, DVDs, games and books revealed that the average UK employee spends 2 hours and 9 minutes every day procrastinating at the office.

It also found that mobiles are the biggest source of procrastination in the office, with staff spending 28 minutes every day on their phones.

  • Daydreaming came in at 20 minutes
  • Gossiping at 18 minutes
  • Going on Facebook at 16 minutes
  • Reading the news at 15 minutes
  • Online shopping at 9 minutes
  • Going to the toilet at 9 minutes
  • Going on Instagram at 7 minutes
  • Going on Twitter at 5 minutes
  • Going for a cigarette break at 4 minutes

 

Male employees are the biggest time wasters, as they procrastinate for 2 hours 51 minutes every day compared to female employees who only procrastinate for 1 hour 52 minutes.

Beauty and wellbeing was the sector that took the top spot for procrastinating at 4 hours and 57 minutes. Agriculture and the environment came out as the sector with the least procrastination at just 57 minutes a day.

Glasgow was the UK city that came in as the procrastination capital of the UK at 3 hours 4 minutes with Nottingham spending the least amount of time procrastinating at 1 hour and 18 minutes. Liverpool came in at the second highest with 2 hours and 53 minutes and London as third with 2 hours and 37 minutes.

musicMagpie has also created a new tool that allows employees to figure out how much they have earned while wasting time at work. The average UK worker brings in £370 each year whilst on the toilet.

These results are based on a survey of 2,010 full-time workers, which was conducted by Censuswide, survey consultants in November 2019.

 

 

 

 

Avatar
Darius McQuaid

Darius is the editor of HRreview. He has previously worked as a finance reporter for the Daily Express. He studied his journalism masters at Press Association Training and graduated from the University of York with a degree in History.