The 4 Day Week Foundation is rolling out a pilot program for tech companies to help them transition to a four-day work week, beginning in May 2025. The program will offer six weeks of training and workshops, with support from researchers at the University of Cambridge, University of Sussex, and Newcastle University to measure the impact of the trials. Participating companies will also have the opportunity to network and share best practices with those that have already implemented a four-day work week.
Sebastian Klovig Skelton
A previous UK trial of the four-day work week, which ran from June to December 2022, showed that many businesses could maintain productivity and avoid extra costs with shorter working hours, particularly for desk-based jobs. Tech firms involved in that trial noted the sector’s suitability for a four-day week due to the wide availability of digital tools and the benefit of shorter weeks for attracting and retaining talent.
An earlier trial in Iceland, involving over 2,500 workers, found that productivity either stayed the same or improved in most workplaces. Sam Hunt, business network coordinator at the 4 Day Week Foundation, stated that the tech sector is well-suited to embrace new ways of working, such as a four-day week. “The nine-to-five, five-day working week was invented 100 years ago and no longer suits the realities of modern life. We are long overdue an update,” Hunt said.
In January 2025, the 4 Day Week Foundation announced that over 200 UK companies had permanently adopted a reduced-hours, four-day week with no pay cuts for over 5,000 employees, with the majority working 32 hours a week or less. Twenty-four of these companies are from the technology, IT, and software sectors.
Sian Herrington, CEO of IT firm Noteworthy Support, which supports the pilot program, called the four-day week a “game-changer” for her company, which adopted the practice in 2018. “It’s not just about giving our team more personal time – it’s about creating a culture that values efficiency, well-being and balance,” she said. “We’ve seen consistently high productivity, engagement and overall job satisfaction. Adopting this model has helped us attract top talent and reinforced our belief that happier teams build better businesses. We will always offer a four-day working week to our team.”
Learning technology firm Thrive participated in the UK’s first medical trial of the four-day week in December 2024. Researchers at the University of Sussex collected data on 115 Thrive employees, including MRI scans, blood tests, and sleep tracking. The results showed improvements in employee well-being metrics, particularly related to stress, sleep quality, and detachment from work, indicating a significant improvement in work-life balance. Researchers concluded that the shorter hours led to happier, more productive staff.
In November 2023, the think tank Autonomy, a supporter of the 4 Day Week Foundation, published research suggesting that automating jobs with large language models (LLMs) could lead to significant reductions in working time without loss of pay or productivity. However, Autonomy noted that realizing the benefits of AI-driven productivity gains will require concerted political action.
The report stated, “This is a paper that identifies an opportunity and not a destiny. The actual diffusion and adoption of technology is always uneven, driven by a variety of factors: wage levels, government policy, levels of sector monopolisation, trade union density and so on.”
“Needless to say, widespread adoption of these new AI technologies will require a robust industrial strategy that traverses national, federal and municipal levels, and that deploys incentives and regulations for the private sector. Most importantly, workplace technologies are social and political technologies, and therefore worker voice – those who will be working alongside and in collaboration with these tools – will be essential.”
