BackgroundShift work, with its growing prevalence globally, disrupts the body's inherent circadian rhythm. This disruption may escalate the risk of chronic diseasesxacerbate chronic disease risk by dysregulating physiological, behavioral, and psychosocial pathways. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of shift work on type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and Retinol binding protein 4 (RBP4) level.MethodsThe current study employed a multi-stage stratified cluster sampling technique, examining 1499 oilfield workers from the OHSPIW cohort who participated in occupational health assessments between March 2017 and June 2018.The evaluation involved shift work, sleep quality, T2DM status with questionnaires and plasma RBP4 levels in blood samples. Statistical analysis includes, Chi-square tests, t-tests, multivariate logistic regression analyses, and multivariate linear mixed models.ResultsThe prevalence rate of T2DM in shift workers (6.56%) was significantly higher than in day workers (4.21%) (OR = 1.60, 95% CI: 1.01–2.53), with no significant difference found in the family history of diabetes, hypertension, or other chronic heart diseases (P= 0.378). The shift worker (6.89 ± 3.35) also exhibited distinctly higher PSQI scores than day workers (5.99 ± 2.87) (P< 0.001). Adjusting the age, gender, BMI, family income, tobacco smoking, alcohol drinking and PSQI, hailed shift work as a risk factor for T2DM (OR = 1.91, 95% CI: 1.17–3.14). The pairwise comparison revealed significant differences in RBP4 levels across different groups: shift and non-shift workers both with and without T2DM (P< 0.001). The RBP4 level of the shift group without T2DM was higher than the non-shift group without T2DM (P< 0.05). The levels of RBP4 level in shift and non-shift groups with T2DM was higher than those without T2DM (P< 0.05). The multivariate linear mixed model showed that when age, gender, BMI, diabetes, PSQI, family income, smoking and drinking remained unchanged, the RBP4 level of the shift workers increased by an average of 9.51 μg/mL compared with the day workers.ConclusionsShift work is associated with an increased risk of T2DM and high levels of RBP4. Follow-up of RBP4 could facilitateearly detection of T2DM among shift workers.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-023-16091-y.