A shift pattern is the rule the rota repeats: which shifts exist, how many days on and off, and how the cycle rolls. Choosing a work shift pattern is the single decision that fixes most of what a rota can be, because the pattern sets the hours per person, the share of weekends and nights each person carries and the number of people the business needs to cover the week. This page is about how to read shift patterns as arithmetic, why a shift pattern generator or shift pattern calculator only answers half the question, and how to cost a rotating shift pattern before anyone is on it.
A pattern is a set of numbers before it is a grid
Every pattern reduces to shifts a day, hours a shift, people a shift and the days each person works in the cycle. Two eight hour shifts a day with three people on each across seven days is 42 shifts and 336 hours a week; the pattern decides how those 336 hours are shared. Twelve people on a pattern that gives each of them 28 hours covers it exactly with 20 hours of headroom per person under the 48 hour weekly average. Eight people on the same pattern are 42 hours each and close to the limit. The free work rota template on this site returns those figures from the inputs, whatever the pattern.
The common UK patterns, compared on the same numbers
A fixed five on two off is the office pattern, and the easiest to cost because everyone's hours are equal and the weekends are fixed. Four on four off is the 24 hour operation's pattern, with 12 hour shifts and every other block of days off. Continental and Panama patterns rotate earlies, lates and nights so the nights are shared. Rotating patterns trade fairness for complexity: everyone gets the same share of the bad shifts, and nobody can remember what week it is without the calendar. Each has its own page on this site; the arithmetic is the same sheet.
What a shift pattern calculator tells you, and what it cannot
A shift pattern generator or calculator will tell you how many people a pattern needs to cover the week, the hours per person and, with a rate, the cost. It cannot tell you whether your people will accept nights, whether the 11 hours of rest GOV.UK sets between working days survives a late followed by an early, or whether the 20 minute break in a shift over 6 hours fits the service. Those are checks a person makes against the pattern once the numbers say it is affordable, and they are the reason the rota is written by a person and only totalled by a sheet.
Questions people ask about shift pattern
How do I know how many staff a shift pattern needs?
Divide the rota hours in the week by the hours you want each person to work. 336 rota hours at 28 hours a head needs twelve people; at 42 hours a head it needs eight and leaves little headroom under the weekly average.
Are rotating shift patterns better than fixed ones?
Fairer on nights and weekends, harder to run. If nobody has to work nights, a fixed pattern is simpler and cheaper to manage. If they do, a rotation shares them, and the calendar has to be published far enough ahead for people to plan.
Does the free tool here generate a shift pattern?
It costs one: shifts, hours, people and rate into rota hours, hours per person, cost and the gap against contracts. Choosing the pattern and placing names is a person's job; keeping it week to week is Weekrota Pro.