UTC Offset in PHP

// will output something like +02:00 or -04:00
echo date('P');

timezone_offset_get()

$this_tz_str = date_default_timezone_get();
$this_tz = new DateTimeZone($this_tz_str);
$now = new DateTime("now", $this_tz);
$offset = $this_tz->getOffset($now);

Untested, but should work

  date('Z');

returns the UTC offset in seconds.