| Full date | 22 October 2025 |
|---|---|
| All-numeric date | 22/10/25 22/10/2025 2025-10-22 |
| Time | 02:27 2:27 am |
Date and time notation in the United Kingdom records the date using theday–month–year format (31 December 1999, 31/12/99 or 31/12/1999). The time can be written using either the24-hour clock (23:59) or the12-hour clock (11:59 p.m.), either with a colon or a full stop (11.59 p.m.).
Dates are traditionally and most commonly written in day–month–year (DMY) order:[1][2]
Formal style manuals discourage writing the day of the month as anordinal number (for example "31st December"), except with an incomplete reference, such as "They set off on 12 August 1960 and arrived on the 18th".[1][3]
When saying the date, it is usually pronounced using "the", then the ordinal number of the day first, then the preposition "of", then the month (for example "the thirty-first of December"). The month-first form (for example "December the third") was widespread until the mid-20th century and remains the most common format for newspapers across the United Kingdom. Example:The Times and the British tabloids (Daily Mail,Daily Mirror,The Sun,Daily Express) all have 'Friday, December 31, 2021', whileThe Guardian, theFinancial Times andThe Daily Telegraph all have 'Friday 31 December 2021'. Consequently in the UK there is no standard pattern for long form dates when printed, as opposed to when using numeric dates, for which there are standard formats.
The month-first format is still spoken, perhaps more commonly when not including a year in the sentence. When the date is written out in full, or when spoken, usage can be one or the other. Neither is distinctly preferred over the other, and there is no risk of ambiguity.
All-numeric dates are used in notes and references, but not running prose. They can be written in several forms. For example, to represent 31 December 1999:[1]
The year may also be written in full (31/12/1999).[1] It contrasts withdate and time notation in the United States, where the month is placed first, leading to confusion in international communications: in the United States, 2/11/03 is interpreted as 11 February 2003. To remedy this, the month is sometimes written inRoman numerals, a format common in some European countries: 2.xi.03.[1]
TheISO 8601 format (adopted asBritish Standard BS ISO 8601:2004)[4] is unambiguous and machine-readable. It is used in technical, scientific, financial, and computing contexts.[1] Lists of dates in this format, whensorted lexicographically, correspond to their chronological order. TheGovernment Digital Service requires it for all forms of data transmission.[5] Dates in this format are separated with hyphens: 2003-11-02.[6]
Weeks are generally referred to by the date on which they start, with Monday often treated as the first day of the week, for example "the week commencing 5 March".[citation needed] Some more traditional calendars instead treat Sunday as the first day of the week. ISO 8601week numbers are found in diaries and are used in business.
The day–month–year order is also used in modernWelsh:[7]
Themonth–day–year order (for example "Mai 20, 1999") was previously more common: it is usual to see a Welsh month–day–year date next to an English day–month–year date on a bilingual plaque from the latter half of the 20th century.[citation needed]
"20 Mai 1999" is read asyr ugeinfed o Fai mil naw naw naw with the usualsoft mutation ofM toF aftero ("of"). The year 1999 can be read as eithermil naw naw naw (thousand nine nine nine) orun naw naw naw (one nine nine nine).
Both the 24-hour and 12-hour notations are used in the United Kingdom, for example:[8]
The 24-hour notation is used in timetables and on most digital clocks, but 12-hour notation is still widely used in ordinary life. The 24-hour notation is used more often than in North America – transport timetables use it exclusively, as do most legal documents – but not as commonly as in much of the non-English-speaking world. TheBBC has been using 24-hour notation in its online radio and TV guides for many years, as doITV andChannel 5, thoughChannel 4 still maintains 12-hour notation.[citation needed]
It is rare to use the 24-hour format when speaking; 21:30 is colloquially spoken as "half past nine" or "nine thirty" rather than "twenty-one thirty".[citation needed] The spoken 24-hour format is used in airport and railway station announcements: "We regret to inform that the fifteen hundred [15:00] service from Nottingham is running approximately 10 minutes late"; "The next train arriving at Platform four is the twenty fifteen [20:15] service to London Euston". Like North America but unlike mainland Europe, aleading zero is used for the hour of the 24-hour format, as in 08:30 (read "oh eight thirty").
To separate the hours, minutes and seconds, either a point (full stop) or a colon can be used. For 12-hour time, the point (full stop) format (for example "1.45 p.m.") is in common usage and has been recommended by some style guides, including the academic manual published byOxford University Press under various titles,[8] as well as the internalhouse style book for theUniversity of Oxford,[9] that ofThe Guardian[10] andThe Times newspapers.[11]
The colon format (as in "1:45 p.m.") is also recognised and is common in digital devices and applications. The moredescriptive 2014 revision ofNew Hart's Rules concedes that the colon format "is often seen in British usage too", and that either style "is acceptable if applied consistently."[8]
The time-of-day abbreviations (which are generally lowercase only) are handled in various conflicting styles, including "a.m." and "p.m." with a space between the time and the abbreviation ("1.45 p.m.");[8] "am" and "pm" with a space ("1.45 pm" – recognised as an alternative usage by Oxford);[8] and the same without a space ("1.45pm" – primarily found in news writing).[10][11][12]
In 24-hour time, a colon isinternationally standard (as in "13:45"). Some British news publishers favour "13.45" format instead, such asThe Guardian.[10] Some stick with the colon, including theEvening Standard[citation needed] and the BBC.[13] Oxford recognises both styles.[8] The "a.m." and "p.m." abbreviations are not used with 24-hour time in any form.
In British English, the expression "half [hour]" is heard colloquially to denote 30 minutespast the hour. For example, "half ten" means 10:30 (a.m. or p.m.). This is an abbreviation of the more formal, "half past ten". The abbreviated form can cause misunderstanding with non-native speakers as this contrasts with many European languages, where the same type of expression denotes 30 minutesbefore the hour. For example, Czechpůl desáté, Germanhalb zehn, Finnishpuoli kymmenen, and Swedishhalv tio (all literally "half ten") mean 9:30.
The following table shows times written in some common approaches to 12-hour and 24-hour notation, and how each time is typically spoken:
| 12-hour | 24-hour | Spoken |
|---|---|---|
| 12 a.m. | 00:00 | midnight |
| 6.05 a.m. | 06:05 | five past six six oh five |
| 9.18 a.m. | 09:18 | eighteen minutes past nine nine eighteen |
| 11.15 a.m. | 11:15 | quarter past eleven eleven fifteen |
| 12 noon | 12:00 | noon / midday twelve o'clock |
| 4.30 p.m. | 16:30 | half past four / half four four thirty |
| 5.38 p.m. | 17:38 | twenty-two minutes to six five thirty-eight |
| 10.35 p.m. | 22:35 | twenty-five to eleven ten thirty-five |
The Welsh language usage of the 12-hour and 24-hour clocks is similar to that of UK English above.[citation needed] However, the 24-hour notation has only a written, not a spoken form. For example, written 9:00 and 21:00 (or 09.00, etc.) are said (naw o'r gloch, literally 'nine of the bell'). Minutes are always eitherwedi ('after') ori ('to') the hour, for example 21:18deunaw (munud) wedi naw ('eighteen (minutes) past nine') and 21:42deunaw (munud) i ddeg ('eighteen (minutes) to ten'). Phrases such asy bore ('(of) the morning'),y prynhawn ('(of) the afternoon') andyr hwyr ('(of) the evening') are used to distinguish times in 12-hour notation, much likeLatin a.m. and p.m., which are also in common use, for example9.00yb (09:00) as opposed to9.00yh (21:00).
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