When do clocks go back in the UK in 2025?

While we are into autumn by most definitions, the clocks are yet to go back - a sign that winter really is on the way.

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When do clocks go back in the UK in 2025?

• In 2025, the clocks will go back by one hour at 2am on Sunday, October 26, meaning that it will be 1am again after 1.59am.

This change reverts the UK from British Summer Time to Greenwich Mean Time.

The hour of extra sleep is a welcome rest for many, it does signify that many darker evenings lay ahead until next spring.

When is the shortest day of the year?

The shortest day of the year, the Winter Solstice, will fall on Sunday, December 21, in 2025 in the UK, when there will be a sunset at 3.03pm.

After that, during Christmas week, the days will get ever so slightly longer.

Why do we have daylight saving?

Clocks in the UK change every year on the last Sunday of March, moving forward by one hour, but this is reversed during the autumn.

The reason behind why we change the clocks is a contentious issue with the idea first arising in 1784 when inventor Benjamin Franklin suggested it.

A scientist in 1895 was the next person recorded speaking about it, and after that, a builder called William Willett (incidentally the great, great grandfather of Coldplay frontman Chris Martin) campaigned for more light in the evenings.

Mr Willett campaigned for the clocks to change until his death in 1915, and it was 1916, during the First World War, that the clocks officially began to change.

Greenwich Mean Time and British Summer Time are now alternated to make the best use of the daylight on offer to the UK between the longest day in June and shortest in December.

Which countries also have daylight savings?

Far more countries (140) do not have daylight savings, compared to those that do (75).

The US does in all of its states apart from Arizona, Hawaii and its territories, and Canada also does, apart from Quebec, British Columbia, Nunavut and Ontario.

New Zealand does while Australia practices in some states and not others.

Morocco changes its clocks around the Islamic period of Ramadan.

All EU member states have daylight savings. Non EU member states in Europe that do are:

• UK,
• Norway,
• Switzerland,
• Albania,
• Andorra,
• Bosnia and Herzegovina,
• Gibraltar,
• Kosovo,
• Liechtenstein,
• Monaco,
• Montenegro,
• North Macedonia,
• Northern Cyprus,
• San Marino,
• Serbia,
• Ukraine (except occupied territories),
• Vatican City

Russia and Brazil are the largest countries that do not have daylight savings while nearly eerie country in Asia and Africa also does not.