The short version
- The real loss: about £231 million of UK output on Thursday 19 November, from sick days and unpaid leave.
- The one-day dip: about £402 million if you count booked annual leave too, but £171 million of that is work moved to another day, not lost.
- Who can play: 3.66 million UK workers use a PS5 or Xbox Series, the only consoles GTA 6 runs on at launch.
- Time off: around 1.46 million workers off, including 329,000 calling in sick. That's roughly half again on top of a normal day's sickness absence.
- Hardest hit: London, at £45.1 million, then the South East at £35.5 million.
Grand Theft Auto VI arrives on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S on Thursday 19 November 2026, and the headlines have already priced in the hangover. A US estimate of $1 billion in lost output has been everywhere this month, and a UK survey put the British bill at £403.5 million. Those numbers make good headlines, but they mix up two different things: work that is lost and work that is just moved.
So we built our own model from official data, for every UK region. Then we turned it into a calculator, so you can change any assumption you disagree with, or work out the cost for your own workplace.
The £231 million estimate
Here's how our central estimate breaks down. "Output" is the value of the work a person does in a day, measured by the Office for National Statistics as gross value added per job.
| Type of time off | Workers | Output on the day | Lost for good? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calling in sick | 329,245 | £90.4m | Yes |
| Unpaid leave | 512,158 | £140.6m | Yes |
| Booked annual leave | 621,908 | £170.7m | No, it moves |
| Lost output | 841,403 | £231.0m | |
| One-day dip, all time off | 1,463,311 | £401.8m |
Annual leave is the biggest group, and it's the one that inflates most estimates. UK workers get a fixed number of days off a year, and taking one on 19 November means not taking it some other day. The economy loses that day's work on the Thursday and gets it back later in the year. A sick day or an unpaid day off is different: that work is simply not done.
That still leaves a big number. 329,000 extra sick days in one day is a lot: on a normal working day, ONS figures put sickness absence at around 2% of working time, or roughly 690,000 workers. GTA 6 would add about half as much again.
Why it's not £403 million
The UK figure in the headlines came from a Uswitch survey of 1,000 UK workers who play games. It's a useful survey, and we use its answers. But the way it turned answers into pounds differs from ours in three ways, and they don't all point the same way.
- Annual leave isn't a loss. About two thirds of the £403.5 million was annual leave. We count it in the one-day dip but not in the lost output.
- Unpaid leave is a loss. 14% of the survey's respondents said they may take unpaid leave, but those days weren't in the total. We add them, and they are the biggest single part of our £231 million.
- Output, not wages, and only people who can play. The survey valued every hour at the median wage of £19.67. A day of work is worth more than the wage paid for it, so we use ONS output per job, which is £279 a day across the UK. We also only count people who can actually play on the 19th: GTA 6 is console-only at launch, so a worker who games on a phone or PC can't play it yet.
The cost in every UK region
The regional split follows two things: how many people work in each region, and how much a day of their work is worth. London has neither the most workers nor the most players (the South East has slightly more of both), but a day of London work is worth £377 against a UK average of £279, so it tops the table.
UK launch-day calculator
Move any slider to change the assumption. The table and totals update as you go.
| Region | Output per day | Workers off | Lost output |
|---|
Two of those sliders start at zero or 100% on purpose. "Follow through" covers the gap between saying you might do something and doing it: survey answers like "may take" and "would consider" tend to run ahead of what people actually do. "Tired players at work" covers the late night before work. Uswitch found 21% expect to be more tired and 16% expect to be less productive. We left both out of the headline figure because there's no good data to set them, but the calculator lets you add them.
Work out the cost for your workplace
The same rates apply to a single company, team or school staff room. Put in your headcount and the average annual pay per person. If you know your output per person, use that instead: it gives a fuller picture of what a missing day costs.
The default pay is close to the UK median for full-time employees, which the ONS put at £811.20 a week in April 2026. A team that skews young will probably see more players than the UK rate suggests, since console use is far higher among people in their 20s and 30s.
Is this bad news for the economy?
Not really. Even our larger figure, the £402 million one-day dip, is less than 0.02% of a year's UK output, and the annual leave part comes back. Some of the lost day is offset by spending, too: the standard edition costs £69.99, and every copy sold, from a shop or a download, is UK spending that lands in the same week.
For individual employers it can matter more. A small team where three people are off on the same day loses most of a day's work, and a shop or call centre can't easily move it. If you run a team, the cheapest fix is the boring one: decide now how you'll handle leave requests for the 19th, before they all arrive at once.
How we built the model
We started with everyone in work in the UK: 34.58 million people in June to August 2026, from the ONS regional labour market tables. Then we narrowed it to people who could play GTA 6 on launch day:
- Console users. Ofcom's Technology Tracker found 21% of UK adults personally use a games console, rising to 23% of those aged 16 to 74. We use 23%, since workers are mostly of working age.
- The right console. In the same survey, 31% of homes with a console used a PS5 and 30% used an Xbox Series X or S. Some homes have both, so the share with either is between 31% and 61%. We use the midpoint, 46%.
That gives 3.66 million UK workers who could play on day one. To those we applied the Uswitch survey's answers: 9% may call in sick, 14% may take unpaid leave and 17% would consider annual leave. We value each day off at the ONS figure for gross value added per filled job in each region in 2023, the latest regional year, divided by 253 working days. Using 2023 values makes the figures slightly conservative, since output per job has risen since then.
It's a model, not a forecast. Change any input in the calculator and you get a different answer, and that's the point. The full regional figures are in a CSV file, with a regional chart, both free to use with a credit to Playqub.
Sources: ONS, Labour market in the regions of the UK, October 2026 (table S01); ONS, Subregional productivity, table B4; ONS, Employee earnings in the UK: 2026; ONS, Sickness absence in the UK labour market: 2025; Ofcom, Technology Tracker 2024, tables 13 to 16; Uswitch survey of 1,000 UK workers who play games, October 2026. Playqub is an independent gaming site and is not affiliated with Rockstar Games or Take-Two Interactive.
Frequently asked questions
How much will GTA 6's launch cost the UK economy?
Our central estimate is about £231 million of lost output on Thursday 19 November 2026, from around 841,000 sick days and unpaid days off. Counting booked annual leave as well, the one-day dip is about £402 million, but the annual leave part is work moved to another day, not lost.
How many UK workers will take the day off for GTA 6?
We estimate about 1.46 million: 622,000 on booked annual leave, 512,000 on unpaid leave and 329,000 calling in sick. That comes from 3.66 million UK workers who use a PS5 or Xbox Series console, the only machines GTA 6 runs on at launch.
Which UK region will lose the most?
London, at about £45.1 million, because output per worker there is the highest in the UK at £377 a day. The South East is second at £35.5 million. Together they make up over a third of the UK total.
Why is this lower than other estimates?
Earlier UK figures counted booked annual leave as a loss. Annual leave is part of every worker's year, so taking it on 19 November moves the work rather than losing it. We also limit the count to people with a console that can run GTA 6 on day one, but we add unpaid leave, which earlier estimates left out.
Can I work out the cost for my own company?
Yes. The workplace calculator in this article takes your headcount and average pay or output per person and estimates how many staff will be off and what the day will cost, using the same rates as our UK model. You can change every assumption.
When does GTA 6 come out?
Grand Theft Auto VI launches on 19 November 2026 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. There is no PC version at launch.
Facts in this article were checked against developer and store sources on 27 October 2026. Prices, versions and dates change, so confirm on the official page before you buy.
