Nearly half of employees in the UK, or 49%, work unpaid hours, according to research from HR software provider Ciphr. The research showed that the 49% figure was significantly higher than employees who receive overtime pay (23%).

The HR software provider polled 1,000 UK workers to find out how much unpaid overtime, if any, they each worked on average.

Among those who do regularly work unpaid overtime, the average time clocked up each week is just over three hours (184 minutes). Over a five-day work week, that’s around 37 minutes extra per shift. Around one in nine (11%) of those surveyed are posting five additional, unpaid hours a week.

The employees most likely to work the longest extra hours unpaid include senior managers (averaging 4.1 hours a week), 25-34-year-olds (3.5 hours), remote workers (3.5 hours), and those working in legal services and education (4.1 hours and 3.9 hours respectively).

According to Ciphr, while many people, particularly salaried employees, typically expect, and accept, a certain degree of unpaid work as being part of their role, few may be aware of the full extent of how those extra minutes (over and above contracted hours) can add up when unpaid work is done too frequently.

Shortening or skipping lunch appears to be one of the most common ways that employees overwork. In the week that Ciphr ran its survey, 36% of respondents had taken their full lunch break every day. Meanwhile, 23% had barely taken their full lunch break off that week at all.

If this pattern of overworking, through breaks and after hours, is left unchecked long term, it could negatively impact an individual’s health and wellbeing, and cause stress and job burnout, Ciphr noted. It could also lead to employee resentment, especially if the unpaid overtime that is being worked isn’t being done voluntarily or doesn’t feel very voluntary due to big workloads, understaffing, or unrealistic targets.

Claire Williams, chief people officer at Ciphr, said, “If an individual thinks they are doing too many unpaid hours, then it’s vital that they address this with their employer as soon as possible. Doing a bit of extra work occasionally is one thing, and it is relatively common practice to work additional hours, at times, to fulfil your role, but feeling like you ‘have’ to do that extra work regularly because it is being expected of you is quite another.”