Millions of Britons are having their health and home life put at risk because bosses are not offering them regular shift patterns, a new study by Oxford and Cambridge Universities has shown.

Nearly 15 per cent of the workforce, 4.6 million people, are the victims of ‘precarious scheduling’ where their hours are so inconsistent that they cannot make plans, leading to stress and domestic strife.

Researchers said that many workers found themselves in ‘degrading’ relationships with managers where they were forced to beg for changes to rotas to allow them to look after their children or attend important family events.

Dr Alex Wood, now at Oxford University, who embedded himself as a shelf-stacker at a UK supermarket while a researcher at Cambridge's Department of Sociology, said he had experienced first-hand the toxic interactions between management and workers.

"The past decade has seen a fragmenting of working time, as firms have saved costs by increasing shift flexibility through a variety of mechanisms," said Dr Wood.

"Those who have challenging schedules imposed on them at short notice are likely to experience worse mental health, typified by anxiety and feeling low.”