When Do the Clocks Go Forward Again After Going Back?

The clocks go back at 02:00 BST on Sunday, 25 October 2026, then forward at 01:00 GMT on Sunday, 28 March 2027. The next autumn change is Sunday, 31 October 2027.

The UK has one setting for winter, called Greenwich Mean Time, and one setting for summer, called British Summer Time. You do not need to reset anything in between: it is a once-a-year move in each direction, and your phone does it by itself.

GMT runs from the last Sunday of October to the last Sunday of March. Because the rule uses the last Sunday, the length varies a little from year to year, between about 145 and 157 days. Here is the winter period for each of the next five years:

2026 to 2027: clocks go back on Sunday, 25 October 2026, forward on Sunday, 28 March 2027, 154 days on GMT.

2027 to 2028: clocks go back on Sunday, 31 October 2027, forward on Sunday, 26 March 2028, 147 days on GMT.

2028 to 2029: clocks go back on Sunday, 29 October 2028, forward on Sunday, 25 March 2029, 147 days on GMT.

2029 to 2030: clocks go back on Sunday, 28 October 2029, forward on Sunday, 31 March 2030, 154 days on GMT.

2030 to 2031: clocks go back on Sunday, 27 October 2030, forward on Sunday, 30 March 2031, 154 days on GMT.

The spring date is always the last Sunday of March, which means it falls between 25 and 31 March. To find it, look at the calendar for the 31st: if it is a Sunday, that is the date; if not, count back to the previous Sunday. For the autumn date the same rule applies to 31 October, giving a date between 25 and 31 October.

Both changes happen at the same UTC instant: 01:00 UTC. That is 01:00 GMT going forward (02:00 BST afterwards) and 02:00 BST going back (01:00 GMT afterwards).

You do not have to wait for the clock change to notice lighter evenings. The earliest sunsets in the UK come around 10 December, well before the shortest day. By early February sunset in London is after 17:00 again, and by early March it is near 18:00 GMT.

The morning light moves the other way: the latest sunrises are in early January, around 08:05 in London, and they get earlier every day from there. When the clocks go forward at the end of March, sunrise moves from about 06:00 GMT to about 07:00 BST, and sunset from about 18:15 to about 19:15.

Smartphones, laptops, smart TVs, most modern cars and many ovens update themselves. The ones that do not are usually the oven, microwave, a car with an old head unit, wall clocks, wrist watches and plug-in timers for lights or heating.

A simple trick is to link it to a weekend routine. Many people change all manual clocks on the Saturday evening before the change, since the actual move happens on Sunday morning, then check the heating schedule and any alarm that is not on a smartphone. Our guide to changing the clocks on devices lists the common ones.

There is no plan to end the twice-yearly change in the UK. In 2019 the European Parliament voted to end seasonal clock changes from 2021, but the member states never agreed how to do it, and the proposal stalled. The UK left the EU in 2020 and has kept the same dates. If a change does come, expect a long notice period, since it would affect rail timetables, aviation and financial markets.