Moray has been named the least hard-working area in Scotland, according to a UK-wide analysis of weekly working hours. The ranking, published on Wednesday, September 23, by Re-flow Field Management, used Office for National Statistics data to assess the total mean weekly hours worked across the UK in 2025.
Moray's working hours below UK average
Employees in Moray work an average of 30.1 hours per week, around 2.7 hours below the UK average of 32.8 hours, and more than 8 per cent lower overall. Working time in the area has also fallen by 0.8 per cent over the past year.
Over the course of a year, this equates to roughly 1,565 hours worked per person and around 18 fewer working days than the UK average. Moray is situated in the northeast of Scotland, bordering Aberdeenshire and Highland, with a coastline on the Moray Firth. Its council is based in Elgin, the area's largest settlement, with a population of approximately 25,000 people.
Employment and unemployment data
Office for National Statistics data from 2024 showed that the employment rate in Moray for people aged 16 to 64 was 71.9 per cent, while the unemployment rate for people over 16 was 3 per cent.
In contrast, the hardest-working area in the UK was Slough in England, where employees work an average of 35.9 hours per week — almost 10 per cent, or around 3.1 hours, higher than the UK-wide average. Across its 64,000 jobs, workers in Slough put in an estimated 2.3 million hours a week, with weekly hours up 1.8 per cent compared to 2024. This translates to almost 1,870 hours worked per person per year and more than 20 extra working days compared with the UK average.
Expert comment on regional differences
Ashley Wing, CMO of Re-flow Field Management, said: "The gap between the highest and lowest ranked areas points to structural differences in local labour markets rather than simple variations in effort.
"Areas near the top of the ranking often have a higher concentration of full-time, office-based and professional roles, where longer contracted hours and unpaid overtime are more common, particularly in commuter hubs and large employment centres. In contrast, areas towards the bottom tend to have a greater share of part-time, public sector, seasonal or shift-based work, which naturally pulls average weekly hours down.
"What stands out with areas like Moray is the concentration of seasonal, part-time and public sector roles that naturally pull average hours down, and that pattern is particularly pronounced in parts of rural Scotland. Overall, the data highlights how uneven working time has become across the UK, shaped as much by where people work as by what they do."
The top 10 hardest-working areas of the UK are Slough, South Holland, Rutland, Stevenage, Cherwell, Kensington and Chelsea, North Warwickshire, Cannock Chase, Nuneaton and Bedworth, Gosport, and Hammersmith and Fulham.
