Agency workers: what rights do they have?

After today’s shift, save your payslip and rota. If pay looks short, ask the agency in writing how it calculated it. Day-one rights apply from your first shift; equal treatment follows after 12 qualifying weeks in the same role with the same hirer. Who is responsible depends on the right.

Who employs you?

As an agency worker, you have a contract with a temporary work agency, which supplies you temporarily to work under the hirer’s supervision and direction. The Agency Workers Regulations 2010 can apply whether you are an employee or a worker. If you are genuinely in business on your own account, they do not apply. A contract label alone cannot decide your status.

The agency finds the assignment and usually pays you; the hirer directs the work. If you are paid through an umbrella company, the umbrella runs your payroll. Check which organisation has your employment contract rather than assuming the hirer is your employer.

Status matters alongside agency-worker rights. Workers get minimum wage, paid holiday and rest; employees also have statutory maternity and paternity leave, statutory notice and, subject to eligibility, ordinary unfair-dismissal and redundancy rights. Agency workers paid through PAYE can qualify for statutory maternity and sick pay without having employee status for all other purposes. Read our guide to employee, worker or self-employed status.

The agency cannot make your pay conditional on finding another job, completing a further assignment or getting the hirer to sign your timesheet. If an agency offers paid extras such as transport or training, you can refuse without losing work for that reason.

What you get from day one

There is no 12-week wait for ordinary worker rights. Two further rights under the agency-worker regulations apply immediately against the hirer.

The hirer controls the site and must manage risks there. If you are pregnant, tell both the agency and hirer so they can address any risk before your next shift.

How to count the 12 qualifying weeks

To qualify for equal treatment you need 12 continuous calendar weeks in the same role with the same hirer. Regulation 7 counts weeks across assignments and agencies. Even one shift in a calendar week counts; a different hirer starts a different clock.

Gaps do not all have the same effect. Note the dates you worked and why any break occurred.

Some breaks pause the clock without erasing the weeks you have earned. They include an ordinary break of up to six calendar weeks; sickness or injury for up to 28 weeks, for which medical evidence may be required; other leave you are entitled to, including holiday; jury service for up to 28 weeks; a customary planned shutdown; or a strike or lock-out. The clock picks up when you return to the same role and hirer.

The clock keeps running during pregnancy, childbirth or maternity-related absence in the protected period, and during statutory or contractual maternity, adoption or paternity leave. You count as working for the original intended or likely assignment length, whichever is longer. For pregnancy-related absence, the protected period ends 26 weeks after childbirth, or earlier if you return to work.

A new hirer or an ordinary break over six weeks resets the clock. So does a substantively different role with the same hirer, if the agency told you in writing what the new work would be. That written notice is a condition of a role-change reset. The qualifying absences above do not become ordinary gaps just because they exceed six weeks.

After 12 weeks: what must match, and what does not

“Same rights as permanent staff” goes too far. After qualification, your basic conditions must match what you would have received if the hirer had recruited you directly at the start of the qualifying period. Regulation 6 covers pay, duration of working time, night work, rest periods, rest breaks and annual leave. It does not cover every benefit the hirer offers.

The benchmark need not be a permanent employee. A comparable worker doing the same or broadly similar work may help show what direct recruitment would mean. The old “pay between assignments” exemption from equal pay, sometimes called the Swedish derogation, ended on 6 April 2020. That loophole benefited agencies by letting them avoid equal pay; workers bore the cost.

Who is responsible when pay is short?

The hirer is responsible for access to shared facilities and for telling agency workers about vacancies. For equal treatment, the agency is liable to the extent it caused the breach. It has a defence if it took reasonable steps to obtain the hirer’s terms, acted reasonably on them and applied them correctly. A hirer that gave wrong figures may then be liable.

Ask both organisations which direct-hire rate and holiday entitlement they used. If the hirer supplied £15 an hour and the agency paid £12.71, the agency cannot blame the hirer for that shortfall.

After your shift, send the agency and hirer a written request for your rate, hours and holiday terms, plus an explanation of any shortfall. Keep the payslip, rota, timesheets and reply. Note unpaid travel between care visits, uniform deductions or missing warehouse and hotel hours, missed retail breaks, or unpaid kitchen trial shifts. Ask UNISON (care or health), USDAW (retail), Unite or GMB (hospitality, logistics or cleaning). Acas early conciliation comes before most claims. Citizens Advice or a law centre can advise. Do not wait if a deadline is close.

1. Ask the agency in writing. Once you have qualified, request a statement of the basic terms you should receive. It has 28 days to reply.
2. If there is no reply, ask the hirer. After 30 days without an agency response, you may request a statement directly from the hirer; it has 28 days. A tribunal may draw inferences from inadequate answers.
3. Start Acas early conciliation before claiming. For an agency-worker breach whose relevant date is on or after 1 October 2026, the normal tribunal limit is six months from the relevant act or last act in a series, subject to conciliation rules and possible extensions. For a breach before that date, the former three-month rule still applies. The change does not revive an old claim. Ask Acas promptly rather than calculating a deadline from a general article.
4. Report wider non-compliance. The Fair Work Agency, established in April 2026, can investigate agency standards, minimum wage and other matters in its remit. A tribunal claim is the route to a personal remedy under the agency-worker regulations.

You are protected from detriment for asserting agency-worker rights from day one. Losing shifts because you asked about pay may be a detriment. If you are an employee and dismissed for a protected reason, that dismissal can be automatically unfair without a service requirement. Ending a worker-status temp’s assignment does not automatically give them an unfair dismissal claim.

Pregnancy, maternity and paternity

Leave and pay are different rights. The 12-week clock does not decide whether you qualify for maternity or paternity leave or statutory pay. It does affect paid antenatal time off.

Pregnancy discrimination is unlawful from day one. The hirer should assess risks and make the work safe. If it cannot, the agency must find suitable alternative work or pay you at the assignment rate for its expected length. Tell both organisations promptly about a hazard, such as lifting or night shifts. If the hirer ignores a serious safety risk, raise it with the HSE. If you face pregnancy discrimination, contact the EHRC or get advice before deciding what to do next.

After 12 weeks, you can get paid time off for antenatal appointments, recommended classes and travel during working hours if the care cannot be arranged outside them. Pregnancy-related absence can keep the qualifying clock running, subject to the assignment-length rule above.

Maternity leave of up to 52 weeks is for employees; a worker-status temp does not gain it by reaching week 13. Statutory Maternity Pay can be available through the agency or umbrella even without full employee status. Under the SMP eligibility rules, you must have worked continuously for the paying employer for at least 26 weeks by the qualifying week, the 15th week before the baby is due. You must also be on its payroll in that week and average at least £129 a week over the relevant eight-week period. In 2026-27 SMP pays 90% of average weekly earnings for six weeks, then the lower of £194.32 a week or 90% of earnings for 33 weeks. If you do not qualify, ask for form SMP1 and check Maternity Allowance. It has its own work and earnings tests, so it is not automatic.

For partners and other parents, paternity leave and unpaid parental leave have been day-one rights for eligible employees since 6 April 2026. Worker-status temps do not gain these rights after 12 weeks. Statutory paternity pay has separate service and earnings conditions. Day-one leave does not mean day-one pay. Adoption, shared parental leave and bereavement leave have their own rules. See paternity eligibility and pregnancy discrimination.

Fees, deductions and umbrellas

An employment agency cannot normally charge you to find work. Entertainment, modelling and sport have narrow regulated exceptions. Agencies may offer other services such as training or transport for a separate charge, but cannot pressure you into buying them or penalise you for refusing.

They cannot withhold wages because a hirer has not signed a timesheet or paid its invoice. When an agency keeps pay you earned, that is wage theft. From 1 April 2026 the hourly minimum is £12.71 for those aged 21 or over, £10.85 for 18-20-year-olds, and £8 for under-18s and eligible apprentices. Those are minimums, not the equal-treatment rate after qualification.

If you hire temps: what to check

A week-13 pay shortfall can be expensive for both agency and hirer. Identify the direct-hire terms at the start, not after a worker asks for arrears.

1. Record the terms. Note the rate a directly recruited worker doing this job would receive, plus overtime, work-linked bonuses, hours and holiday. Check changes during the assignment.
2. Share accurate figures with the agency. The agency needs them to pay the worker correctly. A hirer that fails to provide them can be liable for an equal-treatment breach.
3. Track the qualifying clock. Count weeks across agencies and assignments with your business. Allow for pauses and protected absence; do not assume an assignment gap restarts the clock.
4. Give access from day one. Make facilities and vacancies available as required, and manage site risks, including pregnancy-related risks.

What is in force, and what comes next?

1. 6 Apr 2026Sick pay, employee leave and umbrella PAYE changes in force

   SSP waiting days and the lower earnings limit ended. Eligible employees gained day-one paternity and unpaid parental leave; agency or end-client liability for umbrella PAYE began.

2. 7 Apr 2026Fair Work Agency established

   The new enforcement body covers minimum wage and agency standards, among other areas.

3. 1 Oct 2026Longer tribunal limit in force

   The six-month limit applies to agency-worker breaches with a relevant date from today; earlier breaches remain under the former limit.

4. 30 Oct 2026Harassment duties scheduled

   Employers will have to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their employees, with a new obligation concerning third-party harassment of employees. You need individual advice on how a temp’s employment status and the parties’ roles affect a claim.

5. Jan 2027Unfair-dismissal reform scheduled

   The ordinary qualifying period falls to six months for dismissals from 1 January; this concerns employees, not workers who lack employee status.

6. 2027Guaranteed hours and umbrella regulation planned

   Agency workers are within the planned guaranteed-hours scheme, with the offer duty on the end hirer. Detailed rules and commencement dates remain subject to consultation. Umbrella-company regulation is also planned.