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Staff, rotas and tips
Guaranteed hours for zero-hours bar and kitchen staff: what the law says so far and the 12-week record to start keeping now
Guaranteed hours for zero-hours staff are not in force yet. Government prefers a 12-week reference period and an 8 to 20 hour threshold. A worked average.
Many pubs and restaurants run part of the team on zero-hours or low-hours contracts. The Employment Rights Act 2025, which received Royal Assent on 18 December 2025, will give some of those workers a right to be offered guaranteed hours. It is not in force. The numbers that decide who qualifies are still to be set in regulations, so this guide separates what is fixed from what is only proposed.
What is settled and what is not
The government's consultation page names three measures in the Act: a right to guaranteed hours that reflects the hours a qualifying worker did over a reference period, a right to reasonable notice of shifts and changes, and a right to payment for shifts cancelled, cut short or moved at short notice. The page says these measures "have not yet taken effect". The consultation on the detail opened on 2 June 2026 and closed on 25 August 2026.
From the Regulatory Policy Committee's opinion on the guaranteed hours right, the government's preference is a 12-week initial reference period, with 26 and 52 weeks considered for later periods. The preferred hours threshold, below which a worker with a guaranteed contract would still be in scope, is 8 to 20 hours a week, with options up to 48 hours also assessed. These are preferences in a policy assessment, not law.
| Point | Status |
|---|---|
| Right to guaranteed hours, notice of shifts, payment for short-notice changes | In the Act, not in force |
| 12-week reference period | Government's preferred option, not set |
| 8 to 20 hour threshold | Preferred range, not set |
| Start date | We could not find one in the pages we read; the press release says changes come in over two years |
The 12-week record, worked
Whatever the final numbers, the starting point is what each person actually worked. The sum below is our own illustration of a plain average, not a formula from the Act or the consultation.
| Week | Hours | Week | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 14 | 7 | 16 |
| 2 | 20 | 8 | 14 |
| 3 | 16 | 9 | 20 |
| 4 | 12 | 10 | 18 |
| 5 | 22 | 11 | 16 |
| 6 | 18 | 12 | 14 |
Total: 200 hours. Average: 200 / 12 = 16.67 hours a week. At the April 2026 rate of £12.71 for workers aged 21 and over, 200 x £12.71 = £2,542.00 over the 12 weeks, which is £211.83 a week.
Under the preferred 8 to 20 hour range this worker would be in scope, and an offer of around 16 or 17 guaranteed hours would reflect the record. How the regulations treat unpaid breaks, holiday weeks, sickness and shifts the worker turned down is not something we have read, so the average above may differ from the official one.
What to do now
Keep the hours by person, by week. Take actual hours worked, not the hours planned on the rota. Our bar staff rota template records both. Ask someone to compare them at the end of each week.
Price a guaranteed block. If 16 hours become a floor, the cost of the quiet weeks lands on you. The rota cost calculator adds employer National Insurance to a fixed block so you can see it.
Check holiday pay on irregular hours. The rolled-up holiday pay guide covers how casual hours are paid for leave today.
Check whether your rota app can export the record. The rota app prices guide compares what three common tools cost; we have not tested whether any of them can report a 12-week average.
What we could not confirm
We did not find a commencement date, a final reference period, a final threshold, the notice period for shifts, or the amount payable for a cancelled shift in the pages we read. Check the government's published response to the consultation before changing contracts.
Overlyft can set up an assistant that reads your rota and clock-in export every week, totals hours worked by person over the last 12 weeks, flags anyone whose average sits in the 8 to 20 hour range, and drafts a note for you to review. A spreadsheet with a rolling average does the same job for nothing.
Rates are those published for April 2026 on the date shown. This is general information, not advice.
Where this comes from: GOV.UK consultation page, Make Work Pay: ending one-sided flexibility, reforms of zero hours and similar contracts (opened 2 June 2026, closed 25 August 2026; measures "have not yet taken effect"), read 6 October 2026; GOV.UK Regulatory Policy Committee opinion on the right to guaranteed hours (12-week preferred reference period, preferred threshold range 8 to 20 hours), read 6 October 2026; GOV.UK minimum wage rates April 2026, read 6 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.
