We read 1,807 UK job adverts. 29% mention shifts, and in retail it is 64%.

One retail advert in our sample is blunt about it: "Our stores are awake 7 days a week, so this role will involve working weekends and bank holidays."

Shift work is one of the first things people ask about before they apply. We wanted to know how common it is across the adverts people actually read, so we counted.

What we counted

We read 1,807 UK job adverts from one Reed pull, collected in July 2026. The pull covers thirteen job searches, with at most 150 adverts per search. That means every job type carries the same weight in the table, whatever its real size in the labour market.

We searched each full advert for shift patterns: weekends, nights, split shifts, early starts, on-call, 24/7 or round-the-clock cover, and rotating shifts or rotas. An advert can name more than one pattern. We counted bank holidays separately, because a mention of bank holidays alone is not shift work.

Weekends are the most common pattern

Across all 1,807 adverts, 29% named at least one shift pattern, leaving bank holidays out. Here is each pattern on its own:

Early starts (0.5%), on-call (0.4%) and split shifts (0.2%) barely appear. They are too rare in this sample to say much about.

Retail and care carry the most shift work

Here is the share of each job search whose adverts name any shift pattern:

Retail: 64% name a shift pattern, and weekends dominate

Of 149 retail assistant adverts, 58% name weekends and 28% name nights. Weekend work is the defining pattern for the sector, not an occasional extra.

Care: 59% name a shift pattern, and nights are common

Of 150 care worker adverts, 35% name nights and 28% name weekends. Care has the highest share of night work of any search we looked at.

Support work: weekends come up in a third of adverts

Of 54 support worker adverts, 33% name weekends and 15% name nights. This search returned fewer adverts than the others, so treat the figure as a rough guide.

The surprise: nursing adverts rarely name nights

Only 5% of the 150 nurse adverts named nights, and 6% named weekends. We expected more. Our guess is that many rotas sit in documents attached to the advert, which we did not read. We cannot prove that from the adverts alone.

Office and teaching work rarely name shifts

Administrator adverts named a shift pattern in 3% of cases, teacher adverts in 3%, and teaching assistant adverts in 2%. The graduate adverts named none.

What this means for your CV

If an advert names weekends, nights or 24/7 cover, say that you have worked them and for how long. A line such as "two years of rota work, including alternate weekends" answers the question the advert is asking.

If you have never worked shifts, do not claim you have. Name the nearest thing you have done, such as early starts for a family business or late evenings at college, and be exact about it.

What we could not count

• This is one Reed pull from July 2026, not every UK job. Shift work in other months or on other job boards may look different.
• Searches are capped at 150 adverts each, so the table weights each job type equally, not by how many people it employs.
• We matched keywords. A pattern written in an unusual way, or described in an attached document, is missed.
• "24 hours" can match a notice period as well as 24/7 cover, so the 24/7 figure may be a little high.