Rotating shift schedule examples: 6 patterns on the same 4 weeks

A rotating shift schedule is a repeating cycle of work days and rest days, so the time you get off is set by where you sit in the cycle rather than by which weekday it is. The six below cover most 24/7 workplaces: hospitals, process plants, control rooms, warehouses, police forces.

We make Lumical, an app that scans work rosters into your calendar, so read this with that in mind. Nothing here is an estimate. Every cell is calendar math, computed from the same cycle definitions that draw our free shift pattern visualizer.

How to read the tables

Each pattern runs across the same four weeks, Monday 5 October to Sunday 1 November 2026, for one worker whose cycle day 1 falls on Monday 5 October. Same window, same starting position, six different months.

• D is a 12 hour day shift.
• N is a night shift. It starts on the date shown and ends the next morning.
• F, A and N on the Continental table are its three 8 hour shifts: morning, afternoon, night.
• off is a rest day.

Your own crew almost certainly sits somewhere else in the cycle, which changes which weekends you keep. The visualizer lets you set your real starting date; the calendar pages linked under each table show the crew whose cycle starts on 1 January.

4 on 4 off

Four shifts, then four days off, and it never varies. The 8 day cycle runs one day longer than the week, so the block walks forward: 10 and 17 October come off whole, Saturday 24 goes to work, and the weekend of 31 October is worked outright.

Calendars: 4 on 4 off 2026, 4 on 4 off 2027. Explainer: what 4 on 4 off is like.

2-2-3, also called Pitman or Panama

Nothing here runs longer than three shifts, and nothing longer than three days off. The cycle is 14 days, exactly two weeks, so the weekends alternate on a fixed rhythm: work 10 October, off 17 October, work 24 October, off 31 October.

Calendars: 2-2-3 2026, 2-2-3 2027. Explainer: the 2-2-3 schedule.

DuPont

Three dense weeks, then an empty one: 26 October to 1 November is seven days off in a row, which is the block DuPont is famous for. Half of the fourteen shifts are nights, including the entire weekend of 17 October, and that is what pays for the week off.

Calendars: DuPont 2026, DuPont 2027. Explainer: the DuPont schedule.

7 on 7 off

The simplest shape on this page, and the only one where the rows are the pattern. Because the cycle is exactly two weeks it locks to the calendar week: 5 and 19 October are worked end to end, 12 and 26 October are free end to end, and the weekends split two and two forever.

Calendars: 7 on 7 off 2026, 7 on 7 off 2027. Explainer: 7 on 7 off.

Continental, the 8 hour 2-2-2-2

Six shifts in a row, then two days off, with the start time moving twice inside every block: two mornings, two afternoons, two nights. Two days is the longest break you get in these four weeks, and not one of the four weekends comes off whole.

Calendars: Continental 2026, Continental 2027. The night pair moves a weekday later each cycle and reaches every day of the week in turn, so Friday nights arrive on schedule too: the Friday night rule explains what they cost.

3 on 3 off

Three on, three off, on a 6 day cycle that is one day shorter than the week, so the block walks backward through the weekdays instead of forward. No weekend in this window comes off whole: two are worked outright, and the other two hand back one day each, Saturday 10 October and Sunday 1 November.

Calendars: 3 on 3 off 2026, 3 on 3 off 2027. Explainer: 3 on 3 off.

How to find your own roster’s pattern

Take your roster and count forward from any working day until the same sequence starts over. That number is the cycle length, and it narrows the field quickly.

• 6 days. 3 on 3 off.
• 8 days. 4 on 4 off if you work four and rest four. Continental if you work six, rest two, and the start time changes inside the block.
• 14 days. 2-2-3 if the blocks are two and three days long. 7 on 7 off if it is one solid week each way.
• 28 days. DuPont, or one of the other four week rotations. Compare it against 2-2-3 on the 2-2-3 vs DuPont page.

If nothing repeats inside a month, you are probably not on a fixed rotation, and none of these pages will predict your next one. A photo of the roster will.

Draw your own four weeks

The shift pattern visualizer draws any of these for any year and any start date, so you can enter your crew’s real position instead of borrowing the one in the tables above. It is free and needs no app. Each pattern also has a full year calendar page, linked under its table, with the weekend and hours counts for that year.

Clean patterns are the easy half. Real rotations pick up swaps, overtime and a training day in the middle of a block, and they arrive as a printed grid on a wall or a photo in the group chat. That is the part Lumical does: it reads the photo, finds every dated shift in it, shows you the list to check, and saves the ones you tick to Apple Calendar with the overnights on the correct two dates. Getting a photo of a schedule into Apple Calendar walks through it.

Working one of these six from a printed roster? Get Lumical on the App Store and put your real month in your calendar from one photo.