4-on-4-off rota for 8 people, four teams of two

Eight people, four teams of two, 12-hour shifts. Each team works 4 days, takes 4 off, works 4 nights, takes 4 off, then starts again, so every block in the 16-day cycle is the same length whether you are working it or not. All four lines run that one sequence at different offsets, which is why nobody on this rota carries more nights, more hours or a longer stretch than anyone else. Everyone averages 42 hours a week.

On any date 4 of the 8 are on duty, one pair on the day shift and one on the night, and the other 4 are off. The two off-duty pairs are never in the same state: one is in the break that follows a day block, the other is in the break that follows 4 nights. The grid prints both as blank days, so that difference is only visible if you look at what came before them.

The grid runs 368 days, which is 23 complete cycles, so it closes on the pattern rather than stopping partway through a rotation. It also exposes the one asymmetry in an otherwise symmetrical rota. Across those 368 days Team A and Team C get 20 full weekends off, and Team B and Team D get 19.

People

4 teams of 2

Hours a week

12-hour shifts

Cycle

16 days

23 cycles in the grid

On duty

every day of the cycle

Take the grid

368 dated days, 23 complete cycles, starting 2026-08-24 and ending 2027-08-26. Every shift is checked for coverage before the file is written, so no date in it leaves a shift unstaffed.

Download CSV Team A calendar Team B calendar Team C calendar Team D calendar

The first four weeks

Each row is a week, each cell a team's shift on that date. The full 368-day grid is in the download.

DDay07:00–19:00NNight19:00–07:00

First four weeks of the 4-on-4-off, 8 people rota
Team	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun
Week 1, from 2026-08-24
Team A	D	D	D	D	·	·	·
Team B	·	·	·	·	D	D	D
Team C	N	N	N	N	·	·	·
Team D	·	·	·	·	N	N	N
Week 2, from 2026-08-31
Team A	·	N	N	N	N	·	·
Team B	D	·	·	·	·	N	N
Team C	·	D	D	D	D	·	·
Team D	N	·	·	·	·	D	D
Week 3, from 2026-09-07
Team A	·	·	D	D	D	D	·
Team B	N	N	·	·	·	·	D
Team C	·	·	N	N	N	N	·
Team D	D	D	·	·	·	·	N
Week 4, from 2026-09-14
Team A	·	·	·	N	N	N	N
Team B	D	D	D	·	·	·	·
Team C	·	·	·	D	D	D	D
Team D	N	N	N	·	·	·	·

What this configuration costs

Everything inside the pattern is equal by construction. Same 4-day work blocks, same 4-day breaks, same 4 nights per cycle, same 42 hours, four lines running one sequence at four different offsets. The calendar is the only thing that can tell the teams apart, and it does: 20 full weekends off for Team A and Team C, 19 for Team B and Team D. One weekend across 368 days is a small difference. It is also the only difference there is, which is precisely why it is the one that gets found, and you cannot answer it by pointing at hours or nights, because those genuinely are identical. The second cost is that the symmetry is load-bearing. A break is 4 days whether it follows a day block or 4 consecutive nights, not because those two things cost the same to work, but because equal blocks are what make the four lines interchangeable. Lengthen the recovery after nights and you are no longer running 4-on-4-off: the lines stop being offsets of each other, the weekend counts move again, and you end up with a rota that needs a spreadsheet to explain. This pattern is a package. Take it whole or take a different one.

Weekends, by team

A 16-day cycle does not divide into a seven-day week, so the teams do not get the same number of full weekends off. Over this grid the spread runs from 19 to 20, and it does not even out later: the team that starts behind stays behind.

Team	Sequence	Full weekends off
Team A	DDDDOOOONNNNOOOO	20
Team B	OOOODDDDOOOONNNN	19
Team C	NNNNOOOODDDDOOOO	20
Team D	OOOONNNNOOOODDDD	19

Who runs this shape

Choose this over a fixed-shift rota when you need the four lines to be interchangeable. Every team takes its turn on nights inside every cycle, so no line carries a heavier share of them, and a swap between any two people is a straight trade because every block is 4 long wherever you are standing in the cycle. That is as close to equal as this pattern gets, once you have seen the weekend numbers. At 8 people, where the same names have to cover everything, interchangeable lines are worth more than they would be on a large roster. Choose something else if the work itself is not interchangeable. Four teams of two means every pair has to be able to hold the site alone for 12 hours, on days and on nights, with no senior shift and no junior one. You cannot load your strongest people onto the difficult part of the clock, because 4-on-4-off does not concentrate difficulty anywhere: on-duty headcount is 4 at every hour of the grid, and each pair passes through every hour of the clock inside the same 16-day cycle.

What breaks first

Someone will count the weekends, and on this grid they will be right. 20 for Team A and Team C, 19 for Team B and Team D. Check what produced it before you treat it as unfairness. The split comes from which weekday the grid starts on, not from the pattern itself, and the same four sequences started on a different weekday hand the 20 to the other two lines, or give all four teams the same count. If you have not published yet that is a free fix, and it is the only lever on this rota that costs nothing. The other thing that keeps arriving is requests to bend a single block. A 4-day break is long enough to plan something around and short enough that one shift eats a quarter of it, so people will ask to move a Friday, start a break early, or hand off the last night. Every one of those breaks the offset that keeps the four lines identical, and the repair is usually another swap on another line. That is how a rota people could recite from memory turns into one that only the person who last edited it can read.

Questions

Can 8 people run a 4-on-4-off rota on their own?

The grid fills. Four teams of two hold 4 people on duty at every hour of all 368 days with no gaps, at 42 hours each. The question worth asking is about shape rather than size. The pattern has 4 lines and only 4, so adding one person does not add a team, it puts an extra person on one line and leaves the rest at 2, and unequal lines are the thing 4-on-4-off is otherwise best at preventing. Capacity on this pattern is bought a person per line at a time, not a person at a time.

How many nights in a row do you work on 4-on-4-off?

4, then 4 off. There is no short night run and no long one, because every block in the 16-day cycle is 4 days long. Each team works one day block and one night block per cycle, so nights land evenly across all 8 people rather than sitting with a fixed night crew. If 4 consecutive nights is above the limit you want to run, this pattern has no shorter variant to fall back on. The block length is the pattern.

How many weekends off do you get on 4-on-4-off?

It depends which line you are on, which surprises people, because everything else about the four lines is identical. On the 368-day grid here, Team A and Team C get 20 full weekends off, meaning both days rather than one, and Team B and Team D get 19. The gap comes from where the grid starts against the calendar, not from the sequence, so being on Team B is not permanently worse than being on Team A. It does mean nobody can work their weekends out from the pattern. They have to be read off the dated grid.

How the pattern works

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