Employment Rights Bill | Zero-Hour Contracts

The Employment Rights Bill curbs 'exploitative' zero-hour contracts by ensuring fair hours, proper notice, and compensation for cancelled shifts.

The Government has proposed to put a ban on “exploitative” zero-hour contracts (not abolish them overall), ensuring workers are given the right to be offered a guaranteed-hours contract that reflects the hours they regularly work, based on a set reference period (yet to be defined, however the current proposal is 12 weeks), unless the work is inherently temporary.

Under the Bill, these types of workers will also be entitled to reasonable notice of shift changes/cancellations and to be compensated if shifts are cancelled or curtailed (likely won't be more than 7 days). This is the employee's choice to accept or refuse the guaranteed hours offer, during a “response period” (to be confirmed). This will be a recurring obligation for employers at the end of every reference period.

UPDATE - July 2025

On 7th July 2025, the Government published proposed amendments to the Employment Rights Bill, covering both government and non-government suggestions in a 64-page document.

These are currently only proposals and will be subject to consultation before any final decisions are made about their implementation. Notably, the following changes to zero hours work arrangements are not backed by the government and may therefore be unlikely to progress.

What’s Changing?

• The right for zero hours workers would be softened so workers could only request guaranteed hours, rather than automatically being offered them. Employers would only need to consider these requests, similar to the flexible working process.
• The right to request guaranteed hours would only apply if a worker averages at least 8 hours a week over a rolling 26-week period.
• The requirement for employers to pay ‘short notice’ cancellation payments would no longer apply if a shift is withdrawn at least 48 hours in advance.