Gap year between undergraduate and masters degree

I am an American student currently finishing my bachelor's degree in Ohio, but I spent a year abroad studying in the UK (University of Exeter.) As I've explained in other posts here, I'm planning to pursue a Masters at a UK university (likely in London) and live with my boyfriend whom I met at Exeter.

Because my boyfriend is younger than me and still has another year of uni to complete after I graduate here in the US, I was planning to take a "gap year" to work in the US before starting my Masters (I'd also like to save up some money!). I plan to apply for a 2018 entry as soon as the application is available, but I was wondering how common it is for students to take a gap year (or years) between a bachelor's degree and a Masters in the UK. It seems to be pretty common amongst my peers in the US, but I was wondering how often people see it at British unis. Most of the Masters students I knew at Exeter simply "tacked on" a 12-month Masters program at the end of their bachelor's.

Any other Exeter alums here? Bleed green! 

I think it's fairly common to take some time out before starting a masters, and to be honest, I don't think anyone cares that much if you do or not - but life/real world experience can be a bonus when applying for masters degrees and jobs in the future.

There's not really such a thing as a 'gap year' between undergrad and postgrad degrees like there is for 18-year-olds between high school and university, but there are a wide variety of ages of people doing masters degrees and many are mature students.

I took a year out between my undergrad at Exeter and my masters at Bristol, and my masters course consisted of students aged between 22 and 51 - we had a few students who came straight from undergrad, but several of us had taken at least 1 year out before starting the masters programme - I was 23 when I started, and we also had one 24-year-old, two 35-year-olds and one 51-year-old as well.

My Exeter degree was an MPhys, which meant it was a 4-year degree anyway, giving a masters at the end. I didn't know what I wanted to do afterwards, so I applied for a couple of jobs and then got my vacation job back at Boots while I also applied for PhDs and MSc programmes. I ended up working at Boots for a year and living with my parents, so I could save up enough money for my masters degree.

In the end, I think my extra retail experience (between age 15 and 27) worked in my favour for getting my current graduate job, as although I work in a scientific area, my job consists of a lot of customer interaction and public speaking.

Interestingly enough, the two jobs I applied for in 2005, as I was finishing my undergrad degree, were the Met Office and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). I didn't get either job at the time (hence the masters), but I started working for the Met Office in 2010 and right now I'm living in Antarctica, on a 3-month secondment with the British Antarctic Survey (I've been here 10 days so far).