When Do The Clocks Go Forward In The UK In 2026?

In the UK, the clocks jump forward an hour at 1am on the last Sunday of every March.

This year (2026), that’ll happen on Sunday, 29 March.

That marks the start of British Summer Time, usually shortened to BST.

For a long time, the daylight – or lack of it – across seasons didn’t affect our clocks.

But BST, also sometimes called daylight saving time, came into force in 1916 (some, like Benjamin Franklin, had called for something in 1784).

This happened after a Kent builder called William Willett made the idea popular in the UK.

He wanted to change the clocks according to the season because he was frustrated by seeing curtains drawn in bright mornings during the summer – people were sleeping through morning sunshine, and he thought that was wasteful.

So, he self-funded a pamphlet called The Waste Of Daylight. He originally proposed 80-minute clock shifts implemented slowly across each season.

Because he advocated so strongly for the idea, he eventually caught the attention of MP Robert Pearce, who brought the concept to the House of Commons.

That first version didn’t take. But when Germany launched their own daylight savings time in 1916, the UK followed weeks after.

There have been some experiments in the UK since. For instance, during the Second World War, we gave “British Double Summer Time” (two hours ahead, rather than the usual one) a try.

And in the late ’60s and early ’70s, the government tried moving the clocks forward, but not back.

These didn’t stick, though.

Daylight savings time, or BST, means an hour less sleep in the morning.

This does mean evenings feel longer, but the change to people’s sleep routines has been linked to increased car accidents and heart attacks.

For these reasons, the European Parliament has backed a proposal to get rid of daylight saving time. And The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents have asked for the same thing to happen in the UK multiple times, too.