As a rough guide for most U.K.
maximum 6 consecutive days. Usually 7 or 8 hours, night shift is 9.
maximum 2 hours on (often 1.5 by local agreement) followed by minimum 30 minutes break.
54 hours off following night shifts.
3 periods of at least 60 hours off per month.
This is all accommodated by a “6 on, 4 off” shift cycle of MMAANN which sounds okay on paper but finishing a nighshift on day 7 at 0700 doesn’t really feel like your first day off.
Our job is very cyclical, not only day/night and winter/summer but is really impacted by the economic cycle.
2008, 2009 and obviously 2020, 2021 were very quiet so less radar positions open and longer breaks at work. But from 2010 the workload kept building until over the summers of 2018 and 2019 it felt like these operational hour protections weren’t nearly enough to protect us from fatigue.