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Most of the people working at Christmas are carers and nurses, with over a quarter of a million Brits in these professions working on 25 December
Most of the people working at Christmas are carers and nurses, with over a quarter of a million Brits in these professions working on 25 December Photograph: M. /Murdo MacLeod
Most of the people working at Christmas are carers and nurses, with over a quarter of a million Brits in these professions working on 25 December Photograph: M. /Murdo MacLeod

How many people in the UK work on Christmas day?

This article is more than 9 years old

While you’re tucking into your festive lunch or tearing the paper off presents, take a moment to think of the around a million people across the UK working on Christmas day

Ah, Christmas! ‘Tis the season to be ...hard at work?

Most of us are relaxing with our few days off, whether its overindulging on eggnog, excitedly opening presents or quarrelling with relatives. But across the UK, around one million people will be hard at work on Christmas Day.

Most of the people working at Christmas are carers and nurses, with over a quarter of a million Brits in these professions working on 25 December.

Proportionally, though, those by far most likely to be working on Christmas Day are the clergy. This is hardly surprising of course, as masses flock to Christmas services up and down the country.

In fact, if anything the percentage of clergymen working is surprisingly low, as only one in two reported that they were working on Christmas day in 2012, the last year for which data has been made available.

Which is still high of course, compared with the UK average of less than one in 35 working among those employed.

A breakdown of where people are most likely to be working shows important variation across the country, as workers in the North East are more likely to have to work a shift on Christmas Day.

Londoners are least likely to let work intervene with their Christmas holiday, with only 2.1% having to work.

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