Zero-hours reforms: guaranteed hours, shift notice and pay

A cancelled shift takes the wages away, not the rent bill. If you clean hotel rooms, stack shelves or care for people on a zero-hours contract, the Employment Rights Act 2025 promises more security. It does not yet pay for tonight’s cancellation. The reforms are planned for 2027, and the details that decide who gets what still need regulations.

What protects you today

Your employer cannot remove rights by writing “zero hours” on a contract. As Acas explains, employment status decides your rights. Employees have additional protections, but all workers have minimum wage, paid holiday and rest-break rights. Genuinely self-employed people are outside these worker protections. The label alone does not settle your status.

For a cancelled shift, check guaranteed hours, cancellation policies, call-out pay and the terms on which you accepted it. No cancellation clause does not necessarily mean no claim. Our last-minute cancellation guide explains how to ask for wages owed.

The National Living Wage for workers aged 21 and over is £12.71 an hour from 1 April 2026. Travel between care visits to different clients counts towards minimum-wage hours. A cancelled shift with no pay does not, by itself, prove underpayment. Check pay and qualifying hours across the relevant pay reference period using our minimum wage guide.

Since 26 May 2015, zero-hours exclusivity terms have been unenforceable in Great Britain. Separate regulations protect workers from detriment and employees from automatically unfair dismissal for breaching such a term, without a minimum service requirement. A second job is not a favour your manager grants. See exclusivity clauses.

Workers are entitled to a written statement of main terms from day one, including how hours vary. Agency workers have equal-treatment rights, including pay, after the 12-week qualifying period in the same role with the same hirer.

What is coming, and when

Zero-hours contracts remain legal. The new rights cover qualifying workers, not only employees, with parallel provision for agency workers. They apply in England, Wales and Scotland, not Northern Ireland.

The old “right to request predictable hours” never took effect. The Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Act 2023 was repealed on 6 January 2026. This reform instead puts the duty to offer hours on the employer.

1. The guaranteed-hours offer

Once the right starts, your employer must offer guaranteed hours after each reference period in which you qualify. You do not have to request them. The offer must reflect hours actually worked.

The duty targets zero-hours contracts and arrangements, and contracts guaranteeing no more than a threshold still to be set. You must also meet rules about work above the contractual minimum and its regularity. An 8-hour supermarket contract producing regular 30-hour weeks is the kind of mismatch it addresses.

The offer can vary your contract or create a new one. A new contract’s other terms must be no less favourable overall. Regulations may require the offer to reflect when you worked, including particular days or nights. A limited-term offer needs a reasonable basis, such as a specific task, event or qualifying temporary need.

You can decline. If you still qualify after a later reference period, another offer is due. Refusal is not a permanent waiver.

The Regulatory Policy Committee records government preferences for a 12-week initial reference period and a contractual-hours threshold between 8 and 20 hours a week. The threshold limits which contracts come within scope. It is not a minimum number of hours you must work to earn the right. Neither parameter is settled law.

For qualifying agency workers, the end hirer is responsible by default for the offer. Acceptance would create a direct worker’s contract with that hirer, not automatically employee status. See our agency workers guide.

2. Reasonable notice of shifts

Employers would have to give workers within scope reasonable notice of a shift’s hours, start and end, and of qualifying cancellations or changes. For specified contracts with a set pattern, extra hours before or after a guaranteed shift count as a separate shift.

Notice below a future regulatory threshold will be presumed unreasonable unless the contrary is shown. That is not automatic liability; notice above the threshold is not automatically reasonable either. Consultation options included one to four weeks for direct workers, with shorter options for agency work. None is a legal minimum yet.

A hotel cleaner told on Sunday night that Monday’s 6am start has moved to 10am could, under the new regime, challenge the notice. A tribunal would consider the circumstances and relevant presumption. If you suggest a shift and the employer agrees, the initial-notice duty does not apply to that suggestion, but later changes can still attract protection.

Tribunal compensation would cover attributable financial loss, subject to a cap still to be set. The basic six-month complaint period runs from the relevant shift-start date in the Act, with early-conciliation adjustments. Section 27BM displaces the reasonable-notice duty for a cancellation or change covered by the short-notice payment duty. Do not assume you can claim both for the same event.

3. Pay for shifts cancelled, moved or cut short

A specified payment would be due for qualifying shifts cancelled, moved or cut short at short notice. This covers shifts you were required to work, accepted at the employer’s request, or suggested and the employer accepted. A regulatory threshold will define what counts as moving a shift.

The Act caps the future “short notice” window at seven days and the payment at the relevant wages. Regulations can set lower payments and different amounts according to notice given. Seven days is not a live entitlement to full pay.

These examples show caps, not promised payouts. They assume a flat £12.71 hourly rate. The wage rate when the reforms start may differ.

An exception applies to an employer-requested shift if you never reasonably believed, on accepting it or subsequently before the change, that you would be needed. Regulations can add exceptions. Reliance on those additional exceptions generally requires a notice identifying the provision and explaining why it applies, subject to disclosure limits. That notice duty does not cover every exception.

Better contractual pay survives. Contractual and statutory payments for the same hours offset each other. Once the right starts, an unpaid statutory payment can be pursued at a tribunal. The basic six-month period begins the day after payment was due, not on cancellation. The due date needs regulations.

What to do when a shift disappears

You do not need to wait for 2027 to challenge wages already owed. Use this routine when a rota changes.

1. Save the evidence. Screenshot the original rota, when it appeared, the cancellation and replacement hours. Keep copies outside the work app.
2. Check the agreement. Find guaranteed hours, cancellation terms, call-out pay and contractual policies. Keep messages showing you accepted the shift.
3. Check your pay. Keep payslips and hours records, including travel between care clients. Ask an adviser which working and waiting time counts for minimum wage purposes.
4. Ask in writing. State the shift, when it was cancelled and the agreement you rely on. For example, “Our agreement guarantees the six hours on Friday’s rota. Please confirm when you will pay them.”
5. Get backup. Ask your workplace rep or use our union finder. Usdaw covers retail, UNISON care, Unite hospitality, GMB cleaning and security, and IWGB outsourced and gig work. Your workplace matters. Acas, Citizens Advice and law centres also advise.
6. Act before the deadline. Ask which wage-claim or contract route fits. Report minimum-wage underpayment through the government complaints route. For a possible tribunal claim, contact Acas about early conciliation promptly. Do not wait for an internal grievance to finish.

The six-month tribunal reform starts on 1 October 2026, subject to transition. Earlier relevant dates can retain the old limit, commonly three months less a day. Under the new rule, the usual calculation is six months less a day before early-conciliation adjustments. Contract claims have separate rules, including a later Scottish change. Use our time-limits guide and get your deadline calculated.

Shifts cut after you assert minimum wage or another protected right may be unlawful detriment. Employees may also have an automatically unfair dismissal claim for asserting statutory rights. Acas explains the distinction. Save before-and-after rotas and ask for the reason. A zero-hours label is not permission to punish you.

When the reforms start

1. 18 December 2025Royal Assent

   The framework becomes law, not an enforceable rota right.

2. 6 January 2026Powers begin

   Consultation and regulation-making powers start. The unimplemented 2023 predictable-terms Act is repealed.

3. 25 August 2026Consultation closes

   The consultation opened on 2 June. Operational rules still need regulations.

4. 2027, date unconfirmedPlanned implementation

   All three rights and agency equivalents are planned for this year. The timetable may change. Commencement regulations, not headlines, decide when you can use them.

Limits worth knowing

A qualifying collective agreement with an independent union can replace the statutory provisions. Conditions include express replacement terms in writing, incorporation into your contract and written notification. An employer’s policy is not such an agreement. Ask your rep what negotiated terms mean for you.

Regulations can exclude specified workers. Until the final eligibility rules exist, nobody can reliably promise “work this many hours for 12 weeks and you qualify”.

Scotland is covered. Northern Ireland is not, including by the Great Britain exclusivity rules described above. See Northern Ireland’s employment-law differences.