How much time do UK staff spend on admin?

Key takeaways

There is no single official figure for admin time across UK jobs, and published surveys vary widely by method. In small firms, a day a week of routine admin per person is common across non-admin roles, and more in roles like sales, project management and service delivery. Your own one-week audit is more useful than any national average.

• No single official UK figure exists; surveys vary widely.
• A day a week per person is common in small firms.
• Growth roles often carry more admin than expected.
• Measure your own team rather than relying on averages.

How much time do UK workers spend on admin?

Published estimates vary because surveys define admin differently, and there is no single official measure. In small businesses, routine admin often takes around a day a week for people in non-administrative roles, rising in roles that combine customer work with paperwork. The Office for National Statistics tracks productivity, not admin time, so firm-level measurement is the reliable source.

• How outsourcing gives your internal team time for growth
• How much of your payroll pays for admin?

Which roles carry the most admin?

• Sales roles: quotes, CRM updates and order admin.
• Project managers: reports, trackers and document control.
• Service leads and clinicians: records, scheduling and follow-up.
• Field staff: job sheets and paperwork.
• Owners: everything nobody else picked up.

• Sales team admin time: what it costs in lost selling
• Clinicians doing admin: what it costs a private clinic
• Tradesman paperwork time: what the evenings cost

How do you measure your own team?

Ask each person to tag a normal week from their diary and inbox in half-hour blocks: routine admin, core work, growth work and management. Total by role. The Department for Business and Trade's Small Business Survey also reports on the challenges small firms face, which helps place your findings in context.

• How much of your team's week goes on growth?
• Run a time audit to find what to outsource

When does admin time look worse than it is?

When necessary compliance or client service steps are counted as admin. Mark those separately; they may need to stay. The useful figure is routine, rule-based admin that could move.

• Keep the decision, outsource the admin around it

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see: a 25-person firm's audit shows average admin of 8 hours per person per week, with sales at 12 and field engineers at 10. Those two groups become the first focus for outsourcing.

• See client work
• BPO Solutions for UK businesses

Admin time checklist

• Tag one normal week for every role.
• Total admin hours by role.
• Separate compliance and client service steps.
• Rank roles by admin hours and value.
• Repeat after outsourcing.

• How much time should a team spend on growth?
• Report growth time to the board in one page

Next step

Run a one-week admin tag for your two busiest roles. Their numbers will tell you whether a full audit is worth it.