Time in United Kingdom — regions, cities and time zones

Current time in London

London's time is the country's time, and for historical reasons it is also the reference against which other zones are described. Greenwich, in south-east London, gives its name to the prime meridian and to GMT itself.

In everyday use, the UK is at UTC+0 for roughly five months of the year and UTC+1 for the other seven. Saying "GMT" in July is a common shorthand error — from late March the correct label is British Summer Time.

GMT and BST

Winter: Greenwich Mean Time, UTC+0. Summer: British Summer Time, UTC+1, from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October. Clocks go forward at 1am GMT in spring and back at 2am BST in autumn.

The database identifier is Europe/London. The change happens in the small hours deliberately, to disturb as little scheduled activity as possible. Overnight trains and flights are the ones that notice: a journey in October can take an hour longer on paper than it does in reality.

North and south

The UK stretches far enough north that winter daylight differs sharply within it. In late December, the far north of Scotland has a much shorter day than the south coast of England, with a late sunrise and an early dusk — while in June the same latitude barely gets fully dark.

This is the heart of the recurring British argument about the clock. Lighter winter evenings in the south would mean darker winter mornings in the north, and the two halves of the country have never wanted the same answer.

Britain has been debating what to do with its winter afternoons for longer than most countries have had a standard time to debate.

Nations and regions

All parts of the UK keep the same time: England — London, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle. Scotland — Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Inverness. Wales — Cardiff, Swansea, Bangor. Northern Ireland — Belfast, Derry.

Note that the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are not part of the UK, though they keep the same clock. The Republic of Ireland, a separate country, also matches UK time, so there is no offset across the Irish border in either direction.

Converting to UK time

Against most of western Europe — Paris, Berlin, Madrid — the UK is one hour behind all year, since both change on the same dates. Against New York, the UK is five hours ahead for most of the year, with short shoulder periods in March, October and November where the gap is four or six.

Against UTC, the UK matches exactly in winter and is one hour ahead in summer. Those shoulder periods are where most scheduling errors happen. North America changes its clocks on different weekends from Europe, so for two or three weeks each year a familiar transatlantic meeting time quietly moves by an hour for one side.