Best Meeting Time: Sydney to London
🕐 Live Timezone Overlap: Sydney & London
Sydney and London sit 9 hours apart, with London behind. That gap alone makes a shared working day impossible: when Sydney's offices open at 9am, London is still in the middle of the previous evening. Every cross-city meeting requires one side to stretch outside standard hours. Sydney teams tend to bear that burden more often, given they work ahead of most of the world. Planning well in advance, and rotating who takes the uncomfortable slot, keeps the arrangement fair.
Time Difference: Sydney and London
London is currently 9 hours behind Sydney. The live offsets are Sydney UTC+10 and London UTC+1. Sydney observes daylight saving and London also observes daylight saving, so the offset shifts twice a year if both sides aren't already aligned.
Sydney currently observes UTC+10, its standard offset. London is currently on UTC+1, meaning it is in British Summer Time. Both cities observe DST, but their changeover dates differ. Sydney switches between AEST (UTC+10) and AEDT (UTC+11) on Australian seasonal boundaries: clocks go forward the first Sunday in October and back the first Sunday in April. When Sydney moves to AEDT, the gap between Sydney and London widens from 9 hours to 10 hours. Teams should check the calendar around both changeover weekends each year.
Best Times to Meet
With zero hours of working-hour overlap between Sydney and London, no slot falls inside both cities' 9am to 6pm windows simultaneously. One side must always meet outside standard hours. The least disruptive arrangement is typically an early-morning call for London, around 7am to 8am GMT, which lands at 4pm to 5pm AEDT or 3pm to 4pm AEST for Sydney. Note that London offices often wind down on Fridays by 4pm, so avoid scheduling calls late on a Friday London time.
Working Hours Overlap Explained
Sydney operates on Australia/Sydney (currently UTC+10). London operates on Europe/London (currently UTC+1). The table below maps a standard 9:00 AM–6:00 PM day in Sydney to London's local time.
| Sydney time | London time | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 9:00 AM | 12:00 AM | London outside hours |
| 10:00 AM | 1:00 AM | London outside hours |
| 11:00 AM | 2:00 AM | London outside hours |
| 12:00 PM | 3:00 AM | London outside hours |
| 1:00 PM | 4:00 AM | London outside hours |
| 2:00 PM | 5:00 AM | London outside hours |
| 3:00 PM | 6:00 AM | London outside hours |
| 4:00 PM | 7:00 AM | London outside hours |
| 5:00 PM | 8:00 AM | London just starting |
| 6:00 PM | 9:00 AM | London in business hours |
Tips for Scheduling Across Sydney and London
- When Sydney shifts to AEDT in October, the gap with London widens to 10 hours. Update recurring meeting invites immediately.
- Sydney offices run on skeleton staff from Christmas to 26 January. Avoid scheduling critical calls during that window.
- A 7am to 8am London call lands at a civilised 3pm to 5pm for Sydney teams, depending on the time of year.
- London Fridays often wind down by 4pm. Book cross-city calls earlier in the week and earlier in the London day.
- Rotate which team takes the out-of-hours slot. Sydney almost always works ahead, so London teams should share the early-morning burden.
Public Holidays and Working Weeks
Both cities follow a Monday to Friday working week. Sydney offices run on skeleton staff from Christmas through to Australia Day on 26 January, so that period is a poor time to arrange meetings requiring full attendance. London observes Christmas Day and New Year's Day as public holidays, with a May Bank Holiday falling on the first Monday in May. Any cross-city meeting plan should account for both public holiday calendars to avoid booking into a day when one side is unavailable.