We hate to be the bearers of bad news, Mancs, but the era of long, light evenings is officially on borrowed time. And there’s one particularly painful date you might want to circle in your calendar.
Why? Because that’s the day the sun will set before 5pm in Manchester. Yep. The dreaded dark evenings are coming back.
The exact date the sun sets before 5pm in 2026
On October 25, sunset in Manchester is expected at roughly 4.50pm. So by the time you’re contemplating a Sunday afternoon pint, daylight will already be making a swift exit.
The clocks go back on this day in the UK
We can thank the clocks going back for this particular annual dose of misery.
At 2am on Sunday, October 25, the UK switches from British Summer Time (BST) back to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), giving us that glorious extra hour in bed – but taking a rather sizeable chunk out of our evenings.
The difference is pretty brutal:
- Saturday, October 24: sunset is around 5.52pm
- Sunday, October 25: sunset tumbles to around 4.50pm
In other words, Manchester essentially loses an hour of evening daylight overnight.
Is it the same everywhere in the UK?
Not quite. Sunset times vary depending on where you are in the country.
Generally speaking, much of southern England will experience its first pre-5pm sunset around the same time as London.
Further east, the sun tends to disappear earlier, while western parts of the UK can cling onto those precious extra minutes of daylight for a little longer.
So, yes, there are places where you can technically outrun the darkness for a few more days.
There is some good news
When the clocks go back, mornings temporarily get lighter. Sunrise in Manchester shifts from roughly 7.52am on October 24 to around 6.54am on October 25.
Unfortunately, that consolation prize doesn’t last forever.
The days will continue getting shorter until the winter solstice on December 21, 2026, AKA the shortest day of the year.
After that, though, the evenings finally start getting lighter again. Slowly. Painfully slowly. But we’ll take what we can get.
