Teaching professionals are group most likely to clock up unpaid overtime

UCU said the figures, released as part of Work Your Proper Hours Day, highlighted how teachers and lecturers continue to go above and beyond the call of duty and put in the extra unpaid mile, despite real-terms pay cuts.

The analysis (see tables below) reveals that over half (54.2%) of teaching professionals do extra unpaid work each week and, at 12 hours a week, they clock up more unpaid overtime than any other profession.

Last year teachers were the third most likely group to be putting in unpaid overtime, behind finance managers and directors, and research and development managers. While both those professions have seen the percentage of staff clocking up unpaid hours fall, the percentage of teachers working unpaid hours has gone up.

UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: 'Most people are putting in extra unpaid hours compared to last year, but even more teachers and lecturers are going that extra unpaid mile. Not only are teachers and lecturers putting in an extra hour a week of unpaid overtime compared to last year, they are also now more likely than any other group of professionals to be doing unpaid work.

'This commitment is all the more admirable considering the insulting real-terms pay cuts their employers continue to offer them. The time has come for colleges and universities to recognise the hard work their staff do, reward them fairly and sort out their workloads.'

Today marks the TUC's Work Your Proper Hours Day - the day when the average person who does unpaid overtime would start to get paid if they did all their unpaid overtime at the start of the year.

Top ten occupations most likely to work unpaid overtime 

(2013 Labour Force Survey)