Zero-hours contract rights in 2026/27: pay, holiday, sick pay and what is changing

Zero-hours rights in Great Britain: minimum wage, 12.07% holiday accrual, day-one sick pay, the exclusivity ban, pensions, and when new rights start.

Employment & Career
Employee
Employer
England
Scotland
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The short answer

On a zero-hours contract you still have the core worker rights: at least the minimum wage for the hours you work, paid holiday, and freedom to work for other people. If you count as an employee for Statutory Sick Pay and have done some work for the employer, you can get SSP from the first qualifying day once you have been ill for at least one full working day, however little you earn. What you do not yet have is a right to guaranteed hours, a set amount of notice of shifts, or pay when a shift is cancelled at short notice. The Employment Rights Act 2025 creates those rights, but as at 30 October 2026 they are not in force and no start date has been set (GOV.UK timeline, updated 22 October 2026).

In law a zero-hours contract is one where you agree to work only if the employer makes work available, and there is no certainty that it will (Employment Rights Act 1996 s.27A(1)). Which rights you get also depends on whether you are an employee, a worker or self-employed: see worker, employee or self-employed. This page covers England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland has its own employment law, which this page does not cover. Figures are for 2026/27.

Minimum wage: which hours must be paid

Your pay must average at least the minimum rate for your age across each pay reference period: the regulations divide your pay for the period by the hours of work in it (reg 7), so the hours that count matter. GOV.UK states that zero-hours workers are entitled to the National Minimum Wage "in the same way as regular workers" (GOV.UK, zero-hour contracts). The rates from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027 are (reg 4 and reg 4A, as amended by SI 2026/357; GOV.UK rates):

aged 21 and over (National Living Wage): £12.71 an hour
aged 18 to 20: £10.85
under 18: £8.00
apprentice rate: £8.00 (for apprentices under 19, or 19 and over in the first year of the apprenticeship)

Most zero-hours work is paid by the hour, which the regulations call time work (reg 30). Three rules decide which hours count:

On call at or near work counts; on call at home does not. Hours when you are available, and required to be available, at or near a place of work for the purposes of working are time work, unless you are at home. Only the hours you are awake for the purposes of working count, even if you sleep there by arrangement and the employer provides suitable facilities for sleeping (reg 32).
Travel between jobs counts; the commute does not. Travelling for the purposes of the work, when you would otherwise be working, counts, but travel between home and a place of work or an assignment does not. Travel between assignments at different places you are obliged to go to, which are not places occupied by the employer, counts (reg 34).
Rest breaks never count, and absences do not count except as regs 32 to 34 provide. Time taking part in industrial action does not count either (reg 35).

For an employer's view of the same rules, see the National Minimum Wage employer guide.

Holiday: the 12.07% accrual rule

You are an irregular hours worker for a leave year if the number of paid hours you will work in each pay period is, under your contract, wholly or mostly variable (WTR 1998 reg 15F(1)(a)). For leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024, these workers (and part-year workers) get leave under regulation 15B instead of regulations 13 and 13A (reg 13(A1), reg 13A(A1); inserted by SI 2023/1426, in force 1 January 2024).

Leave accrues on the last day of each pay period at 12.07% of the hours you worked in that period, up to 28 days in a leave year (reg 15B(3)(b) and (4)). During sick leave or statutory leave it accrues under reg 15C instead.
A fraction of an hour under 30 minutes counts as zero; 30 minutes or more counts as a full hour (reg 15B(5)).
Your leave year starts on the date in a relevant agreement or, if there is none, on the day your employment began and each anniversary (reg 15B(7)).
Leave cannot be swapped for money except when your employment ends (reg 15B(6)).

Example. You work 20 hours in a pay period. 20 × 12.07% = 2.414 hours, which is 2 hours and about 24.8 minutes. The fraction is under 30 minutes, so you accrue 2 hours of leave for that period.

Rolled-up holiday pay

For leave under regulation 15B, your employer may pay holiday pay as a 12.07% uplift on your pay for work done instead of paying you when you take the leave. If it does, the uplift must be paid at the same time as the pay for the work, and your payslip must show the holiday pay amount (reg 16A(2), (3) and (7)). The uplift is worked out on all the payments that count towards a week's holiday pay, which include commission tied to your tasks and overtime regularly paid in the previous 52 weeks (reg 16A(9); reg 16(3ZA)). Being paid this way discharges the employer's duty to pay you for that leave in the usual way (reg 16A(8)), so you still take the time off, but you are not paid again for it when you do.

Example. Aged 21 or over, 20 hours at the 2026/27 National Living Wage of £12.71 is £254.20. A 12.07% rolled-up uplift adds £30.68, shown separately on the payslip. The uplift is on top of your pay for the hours, which must itself be at least the minimum wage.

How holiday pay is worked out when it is not rolled up, and what counts towards it: UK holiday pay calculation.

Statutory Sick Pay from day one

Two changes from 6 April 2026 matter most to people on low or irregular hours (Employment Rights Act 2025 s.10 and s.11, commenced by SI 2026/373 reg 2):

No lower earnings limit. Before, no SSP was due at all if your normal weekly earnings were below the lower earnings limit. That condition was removed (s.11(3)).
No waiting days. The rule that SSP was not payable for the first three qualifying days was removed (s.10(6), omitting SSCBA 1992 s.155(1)).
New rate rule. SSP is the lower of the weekly rate and 80% of your normal weekly earnings. For 2026/27 the weekly rate is £123.25 (SSCBA 1992 s.157(1)), so the 80% figure is the lower one whenever your normal weekly earnings are below £154.07.

Example. If your normal weekly earnings are £100, 80% is £80.00, which is below £123.25, so your SSP rate is £80.00 a week.

Who qualifies. SSP is for "employees" as SSP law defines them: people gainfully employed in Great Britain under a contract of service, or in an office, with earnings (SSCBA 1992 s.163(1)). Anyone treated as an employed earner under the Social Security (Categorisation of Earners) Regulations 1978 is also treated as an employee for SSP (SSP (General) Regulations 1982 reg 16(1)). The label "zero-hours" does not decide it either way. GOV.UK lists the conditions as being classed as an employee, having done some work for the employer and having been ill for at least one full working day, and says agency workers may be entitled (GOV.UK, Statutory Sick Pay).

Irregular earnings and days. GOV.UK says your employer uses your average weekly earnings over an 8-week period, and that you still qualify if you started recently and have not yet received 8 weeks' pay. SSP is paid for qualifying days: the days agreed between you and your employer to reflect your contract or, failing agreement, days set by regulations (s.154(2)). If you have more than one job you may get SSP from each employer.

Work out an amount with the Statutory Sick Pay calculator, or read SSP after the April 2026 reform.

You can work for other employers

Any term of a zero-hours contract that bans you from working under another contract or arrangement, or from doing so without the employer's consent, is unenforceable against you (ERA 1996 s.27A(3)). If you are an employee and are dismissed mainly because you breached such a term, the dismissal is automatically unfair, with no qualifying period of employment; if you are a worker, you have the right not to be subjected to a detriment for it and can complain to an employment tribunal (Exclusivity Terms in Zero Hours Contracts (Redress) Regulations 2015, regs 2 and 3).

Since 5 December 2022 the same protection covers contracts that are not zero-hours but pay net average weekly wages that do not exceed the lower earnings limit (SI 2022/1145 regs 2 and 3). For 2026/27 that limit is £129 a week. "Net" means after all deductions (reg 6). For these contracts too, dismissal for breaking an exclusivity term is automatically unfair for an employee under Part 10 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, with no qualifying period, and a worker has the right not to suffer a detriment for it (reg 7); a detriment complaint goes to an employment tribunal under reg 8.

Workplace pension when your pay goes up and down

Your employer must automatically enrol you if you are aged at least 22, have not reached State Pension age, and earnings of more than the trigger are payable to you in the relevant pay reference period (Pensions Act 2008 s.3(1)). The Pensions Regulator publishes the thresholds broken down by pay frequency. For 2026/27 the earnings trigger is £10,000 a year, which is £192 a week or £833 a month, and the lower level of qualifying earnings is £6,240 a year (£120 a week, £520 a month) (The Pensions Regulator, earnings thresholds 2026-2027). On a zero-hours contract you may pass the trigger in some pay periods and not in others. More on what that means: auto-enrolment pension guide.

What the Employment Rights Act 2025 will change, and when

Not in force yet. Sections 1 to 3 of the Act insert new rights into the Employment Rights Act 1996. Under them:

Guaranteed hours. An employer must offer a qualifying worker guaranteed hours after each reference period. Qualifying workers include people on zero-hours contracts and on contracts guaranteeing no more than a number of hours to be set in regulations, whose hours in the reference period meet conditions also to be set in regulations (new ss.27BA and 27BB, s.1).
Reasonable notice of shifts. An employer must give reasonable notice of a shift; notice given less than an amount of time to be set in regulations is presumed not to be reasonable (new s.27BJ, s.2).
Pay for cancelled, moved or cut shifts. An employer must pay a specified amount each time it cancels, moves or curtails a qualifying shift at short notice. The amount, to be set in regulations, cannot be more than you would have earned for the lost hours (new ss.27BP and 27BQ, s.3).

These sections came into force on 6 January 2026 only so far as they confer a duty to consult or a power to make regulations (SI 2026/3 reg 2(2)). The latest commencement regulations, made 1 October 2026, list them as only partially in force (SI 2026/1065, note as to earlier commencement). The government timeline, updated 22 October 2026, says timings "will be updated following the consultation process", so there is no planned date (GOV.UK timeline). Agency workers get parallel rights under section 4 and Schedule 1, with the same status: see agency workers and the 12-week rule.

Already done: two smaller changes. Section 8 widens the power to extend the exclusivity ban to zero-hours arrangements whether contractual or not (s.8), in force from 6 January 2026 (SI 2026/3 reg 2(5)). Section 7 repealed the Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Act 2023 from 6 January 2026 (s.7; SI 2026/3 reg 2(4)). That Act would have given a right to request a more predictable working pattern, but its main sections needed commencement regulations (s.4(2) as enacted) and none were made, so it never took effect.

Commencement status checked on legislation.gov.uk on 30 October 2026. A planned date in a government timeline is not law until commencement regulations are made. Our Employment Rights Act 2025 timeline tracks every measure.

If you are not being paid what you are owed

Unpaid wages, unpaid holiday pay and pay below the minimum wage can be raised with your employer first, then through Acas early conciliation and an employment tribunal. Steps and deadlines: how to claim unpaid wages or holiday pay. If you think your SSP is wrong, GOV.UK says to ask your employer for the reason and then contact HMRC's Statutory Payment Disputes Team (GOV.UK, Statutory Sick Pay).

Frequently asked questions

Do zero-hours workers get holiday pay?

Yes. If the paid hours you work in each pay period are wholly or mostly variable under your contract, you are an irregular hours worker. For leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024 you build up leave at the end of each pay period at 12.07% of the hours you worked in it, up to 28 days a year (Working Time Regulations 1998, regulation 15B). Your employer may pay the holiday pay for that leave as a 12.07% rolled-up uplift on each payslip, shown separately (regulation 16A).

Can I get Statutory Sick Pay on a zero-hours contract?

You can if you count as an employee for SSP purposes, which includes anyone treated as an employed earner for National Insurance under the Categorisation of Earners Regulations, and meet the other conditions. Since 6 April 2026 there is no lower earnings limit and no waiting days. For 2026/27 SSP is £123.25 a week or 80% of your normal weekly earnings, whichever is lower. GOV.UK says your employer averages your earnings over 8 weeks, and you still qualify if you have not yet been paid for 8 weeks.

Can my employer stop me working for someone else?

Not on a zero-hours contract. Section 27A of the Employment Rights Act 1996 makes a term banning you from working elsewhere, or from doing so without the employer's consent, unenforceable, and since 11 January 2016 dismissing an employee, or subjecting a worker to a detriment, for breaching one has been unlawful (SI 2015/2021). Since 5 December 2022 the same applies to other contracts where your net average weekly wages do not exceed the lower earnings limit (SI 2022/1145).

Do I get paid the minimum wage for time on call?

It depends where you are. For hourly-paid time work, hours when you are available and required to be available at or near a place of work for the purpose of working count, unless you are at home. Only the hours you are awake for the purposes of working count, even if you sleep there by arrangement and the employer provides suitable facilities (National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015, regulation 32).

When do the new zero-hours rights start?

No start date has been set. As at 30 October 2026, sections 1 to 3 of the Employment Rights Act 2025 (guaranteed hours offers, reasonable notice of shifts and pay for cancelled or cut shifts) are in force only so the government can consult and make regulations. The government timeline says timings will be updated after consultation.

What happened to the right to request a predictable working pattern?

It never started. The Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Act 2023 was passed, but its main sections needed commencement regulations that were never made. The Employment Rights Act 2025 repealed it with effect from 6 January 2026.