What happened
South Cambridgeshire District Council trialled a four day working week before voting to make the approach permanent in July 2025.
The model asks employees to deliver 100% of their work in around 85% of their contracted hours, for full pay. Council services remain open across the working week.
What makes this worth seeing is not simply the decision to change how people work.
It is what happened around the decision.
Independent analysis examined 24 areas of service performance. Twenty one improved or remained at previous levels.
The council also reports that the approach helped reduce its reliance on agency workers, contributing to annual staffing savings of around £399,000.
Why it’s worth seeing
Transformation often begins with an intention.
What happens next is more important.
Rather than treating a new way of working as evidence of progress in itself, the council tested the change over time and looked at what happened to its services, its workforce and the communities relying on them.
Not every measure improved. The approach also attracted scrutiny and disagreement.
That is part of what makes it worth seeing.
Change was given enough time to move beyond intention and into experience. Evidence could then inform what happened next.
The interesting question for other organisations is not whether they should introduce a four day week.
It is whether they are equally curious about what happens after they introduce change.
One question worth considering
When change is introduced in an organisation, what would show whether people are actually experiencing the improvement it was designed to create?
Source
South Cambridgeshire District Council, Four day working week.