Working Time for Mobile Workers: 48-Hour Average and 60-Hour Week

What this article covers

If you drive an HGV in scope of assimilated or AETR drivers’ hours, you are usually a mobile worker under the Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations 2005. Those rules cap working time — not only driving.

This page explains the pair of limits that belong together:

• no more than 60 hours of working time in any single week
• no more than an average of 48 hours a week over the reference period (normally 17 weeks, or up to 26 weeks if a lawful agreement says so)

It is not the 10-hour night-work cap, and it is not the 56-hour / 90-hour driving limits under Regulation 561/2006.

The two limits work as a pair

A 58-hour work week can still be legal. A string of heavy weeks that push the average above 48 is not. The 60-hour cap does not replace the average, and the average does not let you work 62 hours in one week.

On this site’s timesheet, WTD (this week) tracks the 60-hour week. WTD avg (17w) tracks the 48-hour average.

What counts as working time

Working time is the time from the beginning of work when you are at the workstation (including in the vehicle), at the employer’s disposal, and doing your job. Typical road-transport activities include:

• driving
• loading and unloading, or monitoring loading
• walkaround / defect checks and other safety work on the vehicle or load
• cleaning and maintenance of the vehicle
• training that is part of normal work
• paperwork and legal formalities tied to the job under way
• time when you cannot freely dispose of your time and must stay ready for work
• waiting whose duration you did not know in advance

Not working time: genuine breaks, rest, and a qualifying period of availability (POA). POA is waiting whose duration is known in advance — for example waiting while others load, accompanying a vehicle on a ferry, or sitting next to the driver in a double-manned vehicle (unless you are working or taking a break). There is more on POA versus a driving break in POA vs break; that article is about the driving clock. For working time, the point is simpler: qualifying POA is not piled into the 48 / 60 totals.

Working-time rules also have their own break minima (for example after six consecutive hours of work). Those are separate from the 4.5-hour driving break. This page stays on the 48 / 60 hour totals.

60 hours in a single week

In any one week, working time including overtime must not exceed 60 hours. The week for these regulations runs from 00:00 Monday to 24:00 Sunday.

60 hours is a hard ceiling for that week. You cannot “borrow” from a light week to work 61 hours this week.

The 48-hour average and the 17-week (or 26-week) period

Over the applicable reference period, average weekly working time must not exceed 48 hours.

The period is normally 17 weeks. It may be extended to a period of not more than 26 weeks only by a collective agreement or a workforce agreement (or, for a self-employed driver, by that driver’s own election on the same basis). You should be able to see any relevant agreement in advance. The operator cannot invent a 26-week period because the rota is tight.

How the 17 weeks are lined up also depends on the agreement or notice:

• successive 17-week blocks, if a collective or workforce agreement says so
• any 17-week stretch (a rolling window), if the employer has given written notice that this method applies
• otherwise, default calendar blocks in the regulations (roughly December–April, April–August, August–December)

EU Directive 2002/15/EC describes the same average as being taken over four months (about 17 weeks), with a possible extension to six months (about 26 weeks). UK law states 17 / 26 weeks in the 2005 Regulations.

How the average is calculated

For an employed mobile worker the statutory formula is (A + B) ÷ C:

• A — hours of working time in the reference period
• B — “excluded hours”: paid annual leave under the Working Time Regulations 1998, sick leave, and maternity, paternity, adoption or parental leave. A whole day counts as eight hours; a whole week as 48 hours
• C — number of weeks in the reference period (17, or up to 26)

Holiday is not “free space” that pulls the average down so you can work more afterwards. Those notional hours go into the numerator. On this site, a Holiday day is counted as 8 hours of working time for WTD totals, matching that statutory day figure. It is not driving time.

Self-employed drivers use A ÷ C (no B add-back).

No individual opt-out

Under the 2005 Regulations there is no individual opt-out from the 48-hour average. That is different from some office contracts under the Working Time Regulations 1998, and different from many GB domestic drivers’ hours jobs, where a 1998 opt-out can exist. A message saying “I agree” does not remove the 48-hour average for a typical tachograph HGV under assimilated or AETR rules.

More than one employer, and records

If you work for more than one employer in this regime, you must tell each employer in writing of the hours worked for the others. The 48- and 60-hour totals are about all relevant working time, not only one operator’s rota.

Working-time records must be kept for two years after the period. Self-employed drivers in GB were brought into the 2005 Regulations in 2012 and keep their own records.

Working time vs drivers’ hours

• Drivers’ hours (561 / AETR) — driving, driving breaks, daily and weekly rest, 56 hours driving in a week, 90 hours driving in two weeks
• Working time (2005 Regulations) — how much work you do: 60 hours in a week, 48-hour average, plus the separate night-work cap

You can be legal on driving limits and still breach working time if other work, yard time and unknown waits pile up. You can also be inside 48 / 60 and still break a driving limit.

Practical patterns

Usually OK: one 58-hour work week, then lighter weeks, so the 17-week average stays at or under 48, and no week exceeds 60.

Problem: repeated 55–60 hour work weeks with no lighter offset — the average climbs through 48 even though each week was under 60.

Hard breach: 62 hours of working time in one Monday–Sunday week, regardless of the average.

Official sources

UK law: Road Transport (Working Time) Regulations 2005, regulation 4.

GOV.UK summary: Drivers’ hours, Annex 2 — working time rules.

This is an educational summary for drivers, not legal advice for a specific contract or investigation.

Driver habit

At the end of a heavy week ask two separate questions: “Was driving and rest legal?” and “How much work did I actually do?” The second question is what 48 and 60 hours are about.