Don't forget the clocks go back an hour at 2am tonight - giving you an extra hour in bed for a Sunday lie-in

Published: 13:10 EDT, 24 October 2026 | Updated: 13:16 EDT, 24 October 2026 Millions of people across Britain will enjoy an extra hour in bed when the clocks go back at 2am on Sunday.The fall back marks the end of British Summer Time and the return to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Clocks move forward again on Sunday, March 28 2027, when British Summer Time returns and the days will start to get longer. The annual autumn ritual is familiar to generations of Britons, but the practice of changing the clocks is little more than a century old, and there have been repeated calls to scrap it. The system is intended to make better use of available daylight, shifting an hour of daylight from the evening to the morning during the winter months. In terms of physically putting your clocks back an hour, as long as your devices are connected to the internet via 5G or WiFi, the time will update automatically. The idea of changing the clocks in Britain was first championed by Edwardian campaigner William Willett, who published a pamphlet called The Waste of Daylight in 1907.Willett, a keen horse rider and outdoors enthusiast, argued that people wasted valuable daylight by sleeping through bright summer mornings. At 2am tonight (Sunday, October 24), the time in the UK will go back to being 1am as Greenwich Mean Time replaces British Summer TimeHe then proposed advancing the clocks during the summer so people could enjoy lighter evenings after work.His proposals faced repeated opposition in Parliament, with legislation rejected five times between 1908 and 1916.However, the First World War changed the debate as Germany introduced daylight saving in April 1916 in an effort to conserve fuel and improve wartime productivity.Britain followed shortly afterwards, passing the Summer Time Act in May 1916. The clocks were first advanced by one hour on May 21 that year and put back on October 1.Willett died in 1915, a year before it was introduced in the UK. Campaigners against the changes have argued that changing the clocks twice a year disrupts sleep, affects people's body clocks and creates unnecessary inconvenience.The British Sleep Society has supported ending the seasonal changes, citing concerns about sleep and the body's natural circadian rhythms.