This month, Meantime Brewing Company, proudly born in Greenwich, the Home of Time, is pressing pause on London’s endless grind with the launch of the London Bunk Holiday: an offer for city workers to reclaim their precious time by enjoying a free pint of Meantime at participating pubs across the capital.
New research highlights just how overworked Londoners are: the average city worker clocks up an extra 11 days per year on average compared to the rest of the UK, more than 100 additional hours annually. So, Meantime is giving back some of that lost time.
Nearly three-quarters (73%) of Londoners report working outside their contracted hours, the highest rate in the UK, with one in five (21%) spending more than three hours a week in back-to-back meetings and over a third (37%) admitting to working during their commute.
Every Thursday until 30th October, between 3pm and 5pm, free pints will be poured at participating venues for anyone signed up to the London Bunk Holiday. Those who opt in
will receive a diary invite straight to their inbox; a welcome change from pesky “regroups”, “syncs” or “huddles”.
To kick off the celebrations, Londoners hit “pause” at the first-ever Bunk Holiday on the first Thursday in October and took the time for a pint on the house, all thanks to Meantime. The launch saw workers arrive in “business on top, bunk on the bottom” attire, pairing blazers with beach shorts and flip-flops.
London Bunk Holiday ambassador and viral comedian, Jake Lambert, took to social media playing a “city bro” character in a tongue-in-cheek rallying cry for Londoners to get involved and said: “Londoners aren’t just burning the candle at both ends, we’ve melted through the desk it was sitting on. Back-to-back meetings, back-to-back-to-back emails, and somehow we’re still expected to ‘circle back’? No thanks. The London Bunk Holiday is about reclaiming that sacred time. It’s not slacking off, it’s strategic downtime.”
“We were born in Greenwich – the Home of Time – so we know just how precious time is,” said Richard Witty, Brand Director at Meantime Brewing Company. “Londoners work harder and longer on average, and we want to give some of that time back. The London Bunk Holiday is our way of encouraging the city to pause, reset, and Live in the Meantime.”
The new research revealed clear opportunities for how the UK workforce can reclaim well-deserved downtime. Currently, fewer than half (43%) of employees take their full annual leave allowance, with younger employees aged 16-24 least likely to use all their holiday (33%), compared with 64% of over-55s. Of those surveyed, around three in four (70%) admit to skipping or cutting short their lunch break, with those in London (76%) and Wales (72%) more likely to do so. A third of Brits (30%) also work during their commute, with higher rates amongst the 16-24s (42%) and 25-34s (43%) compared to the 45-54s (22%) and over-55s (8%).
The London Bunk Holidays will run every Thursday until 30th October and will culminate in an exclusive event on 7th November for the launch of The Dial: Home of Meantime, Meantime’s new flagship brewpub. All who sign up to the October London Bunk Holiday events here will receive an exclusive invite.
