The survey, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, will ask a sample of 5,500 households to record what they are doing every 10 minutes over the course of two days. The study is intended to reveal work, sleep and eating habits, as well as how much time people spend socialising and doing leisure activities. It is designed to be compatible with the Harmonised European Time Use Studies so as to facilitate cross-national comparison.

Sam Clemens, director of Health and Wellbeing, NatCen Social Research said: “The UK Time Diary Study is a particularly important study because it has such a wide variety of research applications, from social research to economics, wellbeing and health.

“It has the potential to answer a range of important research questions, from the impact of the recession to whether we are busier than we used to be.”

A pilot study of 100 households will precede the study going into field in April. Fieldwork will continue for a full year to take into account seasonal variation in activities.