UK clocks go back on 25 October: what to check before Sunday
A practical briefing on the return to GMT, overnight appointments and international calls.
The scheduled change
The United Kingdom returns to Greenwich Mean Time on Sunday 25 October 2026. At 02:00 British Summer Time, clocks move back to 01:00. The government calendar confirms the date. For London, this means moving from UTC+01:00 to UTC+00:00. This is the scheduled seasonal change, rather than a new time-zone policy. A clock showing the right time today does not tell you the difference between cities for an appointment after that Sunday.
An hour that happens twice
The local hour beginning at 01:00 occurs twice that night. If an overnight collection, technical maintenance window or appointment falls inside it, ask which occurrence is intended. A precise confirmation can include both the local time and its UTC offset. For a daytime appointment, the more likely problem is using last week’s international time difference. Our guide to repeated and missing hours explains the overnight case with examples.
Check the date of international calls
Do not manually move every calendar appointment back an hour. An invitation anchored to a named time zone can already account for the change. Inspect the occurrence after 25 October and confirm what the organizer intended. In particular, the United States changes on a different Sunday, so an autumn call with New York needs a date-specific check. Use the London–New York comparison rather than relying on a remembered difference.
A useful household and travel check
Review clocks that are not connected to an automatic time service, then check the time zone and automatic-update settings on connected devices. Avoid changing an automatically managed clock manually unless its instructions require it. For travel, use the departure date and the operator’s latest itinerary, especially on overnight services. Keep the appointment’s place, date and time together when sharing it. The travel guide covers the difference between local clock readings and elapsed journey time.
Sources
Related reading
The late-October week when London and New York are four hours apart
A worked scheduling example for the gap between the UK and US autumn transitions.
Why recurring meetings move when clocks change
A meeting can stay fixed on one person’s calendar and shift on another’s.
The missing spring hour and the repeated autumn hour
Some local clock readings identify no instant; others identify two.