Guide
Zero hours contracts: guaranteed hours, shift notice and what is real today
Updated
Employers using casual labour are being sold readiness programmes for rules that have no start date. Here is the line between what binds you today and what does not.
What binds you today
- Exclusivity clauses are unenforceable. Section 27A of the Employment Rights Act 1996 has made any clause in a zero hours contract preventing a worker working elsewhere, or requiring consent to do so, unenforceable against the worker since 2015 (legislation.gov.uk).
- The predictable working pattern right is gone. Section 7 of the 2025 Act repealed the Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Act 2023 on 6 January 2026. It never came into force.
- Working time and holiday records. Section 35 of the 2025 Act, a duty to keep records relating to annual leave, came into force on 6 April 2026.
- Statutory sick pay applies from day one with no lower earnings limit, which matters far more to a casual workforce than to a salaried one.
What does not bind you yet
Sections 1 to 6 of the Act contain the guaranteed hours right, the right to reasonable notice of shifts, the right to payment for cancelled, moved and curtailed shifts, the agency worker extension and the collective agreement contracting out provision. S.I. 2026/3 commenced them on 6 January 2026 only "in so far as conferring a duty to consult or a power to make regulations" (legislation.gov.uk). The government's timeline lists them under 2027 with the express note that timings will be updated after consultation.
The variables the consultation has to settle
- The reference period
- How many weeks of work trigger an offer of guaranteed hours. This single number decides whether seasonal and event work is caught.
- What counts as reasonable notice
- For both giving and changing a shift, and whether it differs by sector.
- The value of a short notice payment
- What a cancelled, moved or curtailed shift is worth to the worker.
- Who carries it for agency workers
- The hirer, the agency, or both. This determines what has to change in your supplier contracts, not just your handbook.
Preparation that is worth doing now
- Measure. Pull twelve months of shift data: hours actually worked per worker per week, notice given, and cancellations. When the numbers land you will be able to price the impact in a day.
- Segment. Separate genuinely variable demand from habit. Workers on the same hours every week for a year are the ones a guaranteed hours right is aimed at.
- Fix the contracts you can fix. Remove exclusivity clauses now, since they are already unenforceable, and make sure written statements of particulars are accurate.
- Do not restructure to avoid a rule whose shape is unknown. Wholesale moves to agency supply may simply move the cost, since agency workers are inside the same package.
The honest summary for a board paper: the direction is settled, the numbers are not, and nobody can give you a commencement date for guaranteed hours today.