What must a temp's payslip show? Section 8 of the Employment Rights Act, the hours line, and what an unnotified deduction costs an agency

A temp who is paid by the hour is owed a payslip on or before payday. GOV.UK says it must show earnings before and after deductions, the deductions that change each time such as tax and National Insurance, and "the number of hours you worked, if your pay varies depending on time worked". For a temp desk the last line is the one that goes missing.

This guide sets out what section 8 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 asks for, a check to run on one payslip, and what an unnotified deduction could cost across a payroll. It does not cover umbrella company payslips, which we did not read.

What the law says a payslip contains

GOV.UK's page on payslips, read on 6 October 2026, lists these points:

• earnings before and after deductions
• the amount of any deductions that change each time you are paid, such as tax and National Insurance
• the number of hours worked, if pay varies with time worked
• delivery on or before payday

It says employees and workers are entitled to one. It names contractors and freelancers, among a few other groups, as outside it.

Section 8 on legislation.gov.uk is the source. Our read of its text: the statement is written, comes at or before each payment of wages, and gives the gross amount, the amounts and purposes of variable deductions, the net amount, and, where part is paid in different ways, the amount and method for each part. Where pay depends on time worked, it gives the total hours worked for that variable amount.

The check on one payslip

Take the last payslip you issued to an hourly temp and ask:

1. Is gross pay shown, and is net pay shown?
2. Are tax and National Insurance shown as amounts, not just as a total of "deductions"?
3. Is every other deduction listed with its amount and what it is for? An admin charge, a uniform charge or a loan repayment all count.
4. Are the hours worked shown for the pay period, separate from the rate?
5. Does it go out on or before payday, and not the next working day?
6. If pay is split, for example wages plus rolled-up holiday money, is each amount shown? Our guide to rolled-up holiday pay covers how that line should be marked.

A payslip that passes all six has met the points we read. One that fails the hours line is the commonest failure on a desk that pays from a timesheet batch, because the pay file carries a single "units" figure that is never printed.

What an unnotified deduction costs

Section 12(4) is the remedy we read. If a tribunal finds that an employer failed to give the required particulars of a deduction, it may order the employer to pay the worker a sum "not exceeding the aggregate of the unnotified deductions so made" in "the period of thirteen weeks immediately preceding the date of the application".

The working, on a made-up desk:

That is a ceiling on this one remedy, and only for deductions in the window. It says nothing about whether the deduction was lawful in the first place. Whether the temp had agreed in writing to it is a separate question under a different section of the Act, which we did not read in this pass. If the deduction is also unlawful, the repayment can be a good deal more than the £32.50.

What we could not confirm

• GOV.UK's payslip page shows no update date in the text we received.
• Whether a temp placed through an umbrella company receives the payslip from the umbrella or from the agency depends on who is the employer, and we did not read that guidance.
• The GOV.UK Conduct Regulations guidance page returned a 404, so any pay-information duty in those regulations is unchecked here.
• We did not read section 9 on standing statements of fixed deductions, and used the 13-week figure only from section 12.

Where this sits in a placement

The payslip is the last step in a temp's week and the first thing a worker will show a solicitor or a tribunal. It also decides what your margin is: any deduction you take has to be shown, and any cost you cannot deduct comes out of the charge rate. The temp margin calculator shows the cost of an hour, and the temporary worker placement checklist puts payslip delivery at the end of the assignment. If the client has not paid, the payslip duty still stands: see the client has not paid.

Overlyft can set up a payslip check that reads each week's pay file against the six questions above and lists the payslips that miss the hours line or an unexplained deduction, for your payroll clerk to correct before payday. Whether a deduction is allowed stays a decision for you and your adviser.

This page is general information, not legal advice.