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Thanks for sharing. I also negotiated a 4-day week (and love it), but it was after I'd been at my current company for 4+ years. It's encouraging to hear that employers are open to hiring people at 4 days off the bat, because I'm never going back. Maybe it's hard to tell at this point, but is your salary pro-rated at 80%?

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Yes, my salary has been pro rated 80% at every job where I’ve had this arrangement - that’s always been agreed upfront. One interesting thing I noticed is that several employers were open to interviewing even after I made it clear that I can only do 4d/week, it turned off fewer companies than I thought it might. After my initial experience, I found it better to declare it up front, because there was one case where I only mentioned it at the final interview and the CEO, who literally had his pen out to write down an offer, promptly sheaved it again and said he couldn’t work with that arrangement. All of my part time roles have been in the UK, and I’ve wondered whether it’s a little easier for European employers to accommodate these arrangements (vs in the US).

I suspect it's more accepted in Europe than in the US. Here in Canada, we're somewhere in between. Not quite the same workaholic culture that parts of the US suffer from, but we haven't been as successful as many continental Europeans in fighting for and keeping our labour rights. No 6-week vacations for (most of) us, though at least we have parental leave.

Then again, I understand that the UK is the most American part of Europe, especially of late. So maybe things land in the same ballpark after all.

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