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Staff, rotas and tips
Pub and bar staff rota template: a weekly rota with the legal rest checks, including the close-then-open shift
A weekly rota layout for a pub or bar and the five rules to check before you post it: breaks, 11 hours between shifts and the under-18 limits.
A rota is ready to post when every row passes five checks: a break inside each long shift, enough hours between shifts, a full day off, a cap on weekly hours, and the night rules. The template below has the checks built in, and one of its rows fails on purpose.
The five checks
| Check | Staff aged 18 and over | Staff aged 16 or 17 |
|---|---|---|
| Break inside the shift | One uninterrupted 20 minutes if the shift is more than 6 hours | 30 minutes if the shift is more than 4.5 hours |
| Rest between shifts | 11 hours | 12 hours |
| Weekly rest | 24 hours without work each week, or 48 hours each fortnight | 48 hours each week |
| Weekly hours | No more than 48 a week on average, normally over 17 weeks, unless the worker has signed an opt-out | No more than 8 hours a day or 40 hours in any week, with no averaging |
| Night work | Anyone who regularly works at least 3 hours between 11pm and 6am is a night worker, limited to an average of 8 hours in 24 | No work between midnight and 4am |
These are the figures GOV.UK gives. A contract can give more.
The employer can say when a break is taken, but it has to fall in the middle of the shift, not at the start or the end, and the worker must be free to leave the bar or the pass. It does not have to be paid unless the contract says so.
GOV.UK says staff aged 16 or 17 usually cannot work between 10pm and 6am, and lists hotel and catering work among the exceptions. The ban from midnight to 4am has no such exception.
The template
Times are written on the 24-hour clock, with the finish as the time the person leaves, not the time the doors close.
| Role | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Supervisor | off | off | 16:00-23:00 | 16:00-23:00 | 17:00-00:30 | 17:00-00:30 | 12:00-18:00 | 35 |
| Bar | 17:00-23:00 | 17:00-23:00 | off | off | 18:00-00:30 | 11:00-18:00 | off | 25.5 |
| Kitchen porter, aged 17 | off | off | off | 17:00-22:00 | off | 12:00-20:00 | 12:00-17:00 | 18 |
Running the checks on those three rows
Supervisor. Four shifts are longer than 6 hours, so each has a 20-minute break. Sunday is exactly 6 hours, which is not more than 6, so no break is owed by law. Saturday ends at 00:30 on Sunday and Sunday starts at 12:00, a gap of 11.5 hours. Monday and Tuesday are off. The hours are 7 + 7 + 7.5 + 7.5 + 6 = 35. Pass.
Bar. Friday ends at 00:30 on Saturday and Saturday starts at 11:00. That is 10.5 hours, half an hour short of 11. This row fails. Its breaks are fine: Friday and Saturday are over 6 hours and carry one, and Monday and Tuesday are exactly 6. Moving the Saturday start to 11:30 fixes it and takes the week from 25.5 hours to 25.
Kitchen porter, aged 17. All three shifts are longer than 4.5 hours, so each has a 30-minute break. Saturday is 8 hours, the daily limit. Saturday ends at 20:00 and Sunday starts at 12:00, a gap of 16 hours against the 12 required. No shift goes past 22:00. Monday to Wednesday gives the 48 hours of weekly rest. The hours are 5 + 8 + 5 = 18. Pass.
The close-then-open shift
The failure in the bar row is the common one. Someone closes on Friday, then opens on Saturday because the delivery comes at 9am.
A close that finishes at 00:30 followed by a 09:00 start leaves 8.5 hours. The right is 11 hours. The shortfall is 2.5 hours.
GOV.UK says a shift worker who cannot take the daily rest between ending one shift and starting another may be entitled to compensatory rest of the same length as the rest missed. Here that is 2.5 hours, given back on top of normal rest. That covers a week when the gap cannot be avoided. The cheaper fix is on the rota: a different person takes the delivery, or the closer starts at 11:30.
Posting it in a WhatsApp group
Three habits keep a group-chat rota workable.
Post it as text as well as a photo, so it can be searched. One line a day is enough:
ROTA week starting Mon 5 Oct. Version 1, posted Thu 24 Sep.
Fri 9: Supervisor 17:00-00:30. Bar 18:00-00:30.
When anything changes, post the whole rota again with the next version number. A reply halfway down the chat is how two people turn up for one shift.
Keep the master copy outside the chat, with the hours worked filled in afterwards. For night workers the employer must keep records of hours for at least 2 years.
What is changing
The Employment Rights Act 2025 contains three rights that bear on rotas: guaranteed hours that reflect the hours a worker has been doing, reasonable notice of shifts and of changes to them, and payment for shifts cancelled, cut short or moved at short notice. The government's consultation on the detail ran from 2 June 2026 to 25 August 2026, and its page states that these measures have not yet taken effect. The detail will be set in regulations, and we could not confirm a start date on 1 October 2026. The preparation is the same as good practice now: a dated rota, a version number and a record of the hours each person worked.
What the rota costs
The rota cost calculator turns the hours column into the wage bill with employer National Insurance, pension and holiday pay added. Tips sit outside that bill, under the rules in our guide to the tips law and troncs. A late event under a Temporary Event Notice moves the close, and with it the earliest start the next day.
Overlyft 
can set up an AI assistant to run these five checks on a draft rota and list the rows that fail for a manager to change.
This is general information, not legal advice. The Acas helpline advises on working hours.
Short answers from this page
How many hours must bar staff have off between closing the pub at night and opening the next day?
Eleven. An adult worker is entitled to 11 hours' rest between working days, so someone who finishes a close at 12:30am should not start again before 11:30am. A worker aged 16 or 17 gets 12 hours between shifts and cannot work more than 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week.
Source: GOV.UK, Rest breaks at work, read 1 October 2026
Where this comes from: GOV.UK, Rest breaks at work (overview, taking breaks, compensatory rest, young workers), Maximum weekly working hours, and Night working hours; GOV.UK consultation "Make Work Pay: ending one-sided flexibility", published 2 June 2026 and updated 12 August 2026; all read 1 October 2026.
AEO Lookup editorial team
We write practical guides for people who run small UK firms, and we check every fact against its source on the date shown. Read how we review, or tell us if something has changed.
