Unpaid overtime by teaching professionals shoots up

The TUC's analysis reveals that teaching professionals are still one of the groups most likely to clock up unpaid overtime as over half (52.4%) do extra hours each week and, on average, put in an extra 11.1hours.  Last year a similar proportion of teaching professionals (55.6%) were doing unpaid overtime, but they were clocking up, on average, 9.6 extra unpaid hours a week.

UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: 'Today's figures confirm that our teachers and lecturers continue to go above and beyond the call of duty. While the government cuts resources, staff continue to deliver for their students, despite the worrying increase of their workloads.

'This simply is not sustainable and the government cannot continue to expect more for less. Long working hours impact on staff and students and on the education students receive.'

Repeated occupational stress surveys carried out by UCU of teaching staff in UK further and higher education show that large numbers are working more than 50 hours a week. UCU has recently launched a workload campaign to combat excessive working hours and stress. More on that can be found at workload.web.ucu.org.uk.

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. Overall, one in five people (20.2%) does unpaid overtime and, on average, they put in an extra 7.3hours a week.More details are available at www.workyourproperhoursday.com

Top ten occupations most likely to work unpaid overtime (2012 Labour Force Survey)

Top ten occupations for unpaid overtime (2011 Labour Force Survey)