Zero hours contracts: your rights now, and the reforms still to come
6 minute read · 2026-10-08
A zero hours contract is lawful, and the employer does not have to offer you any minimum hours. But you keep the core worker rights: the National Minimum Wage for every hour worked, paid holiday, rest breaks, a written statement of terms from day one, protection from unlawful deductions, and the freedom to work for someone else. The new rights to guaranteed hours, reasonable notice of shifts and pay for cancelled shifts are in the Employment Rights Act 2025 but not yet in force, and as at 8 October 2026 there is no start date.
Your rights today
Freedom to work elsewhere
Since 26 May 2015, any term in a zero hours contract that stops you working for another employer, or needs their permission first, is unenforceable (Employment Rights Act 1996, section 27A). You also cannot lawfully be punished for breaching one. The protection was later extended to some low paid workers whose contracts do guarantee a few hours.
Pay
Every hour you work must pay at least the minimum wage, which from 1 April 2026 is £12.71 an hour at 21 and over. Time you are required to spend at work waiting to be given tasks usually counts as working time for minimum wage purposes. See the minimum wage and your payslip.
Holiday
For leave years starting on or after 1 April 2024, irregular hours workers build up holiday at 12.07% of the hours they work in each pay period, and employers may choose to pay holiday as "rolled up" holiday pay added to each payslip, as long as it is shown separately. Either way, you are owed it. See holiday and sick pay and our own holiday paperwork.
Sick pay
Since 6 April 2026 statutory sick pay is paid from the first day off and the lower earnings limit has gone. The rate is £123.25 a week or 80% of normal weekly earnings, whichever is lower (GOV.UK). For people with irregular hours the employer works out your normal earnings from an average of past pay.
Turning down work
On a genuine zero hours contract you are not obliged to accept the hours offered. If you are punished for turning work down, for example by being taken off the rota for weeks, that may be a sign the contract does not match reality, and worth raising with ACAS.
What the 2025 Act will add, when it starts
Sections 1 to 4 of the Employment Rights Act 2025 create:
- a right to be offered guaranteed hours that reflect the hours you regularly work over a reference period, with the choice to stay on zero hours if you prefer;
- a right to reasonable notice of shifts, and of changes to them;
- a right to payment when a shift is cancelled, moved or cut short at short notice;
- versions of these rights for agency workers, with the duties split between the agency and the hirer.
The details (how long the reference period is, what counts as reasonable or short notice, how much is paid) will be set in regulations. The government's timeline says the timings will be updated after consultation. Until then, these rights do not apply, whatever you may have read.
Records that protect you
- Keep every rota, message offering or cancelling shifts, and timesheet. They will matter when the guaranteed hours right starts, because it looks back at what you have actually worked.
- Check each payslip against your hours. Our timesheet page shows the kind of record that helps.
- Keep the written statement you got on day one. See what must be in it.
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland has its own rules on zero hours contracts, and the 2025 Act's zero hours rights are for Great Britain. Check with the Labour Relations Agency.
What to do next
- Read ACAS on zero hours contracts and GOV.UK on zero hours contracts.
- Not sure what your contract means? Reading the small print and what the words mean.
- Pay short or holiday missing? See unlawful deductions from wages.
This is general information, not legal advice. For your own situation, ACAS (0300 123 1100) is free.
Every contract we would ask anybody to sign is published in full before they sign it: our paperwork. And for the words in any contract, ours or anybody else's: reading the small print and what the words mean.
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