Zero hours contracts under ERA 2025: your obligations

Zero-hours contracts are not banned under the Employment Rights Act 2025. They remain a lawful form of engagement in the UK. What ERA 2025 introduces is a right for workers on zero-hours or low-guaranteed-hours arrangements to request a contract that reflects the hours they are actually working — if those hours have been regular and consistent over a 12-week reference period.

The right is triggered when a zero-hours worker has worked a regular pattern for at least 12 weeks. They can then make a written request for a contract that reflects that pattern. Employers must respond within one month. The response must either offer a new contract reflecting the regular hours or explain, with a genuine reason, why the offer is not being made. Simply ignoring the request or refusing without reason is not compliant.

What counts as a regular pattern? The legislation does not define this with mathematical precision, but ACAS guidance points to consistent days and hours across the 12-week window. A worker who has done Monday, Wednesday, and Friday every week for three months has a reasonable basis for a request. A worker who has done genuinely variable shifts with no discernible pattern does not.

The obligation does not mean you must offer a fixed-hours contract in all cases. There are valid reasons to maintain a flexible arrangement — genuine seasonal variation, the worker's own preference for flexibility, business fluctuations that cannot be predicted. But those reasons must be real and must be communicated. The test is whether the pattern of hours has become, in practice, a de facto regular schedule.

For employers in hospitality, retail, care, and logistics — where zero-hours arrangements are common — this change requires a process for monitoring working patterns across the workforce. If you are not tracking which zero-hours workers have established a regular schedule, you will not know when the 12-week threshold is reached and when the right to request arises.

The new rules also interact with the right to predictable working patterns, a separate provision under ERA 2025. The predictable working hours right gives workers on variable arrangements a formal mechanism to seek more certainty. The two rights work in parallel: the zero-hours request right focuses on reflecting existing patterns; the predictable hours right focuses on establishing a more settled schedule going forward.

Shift cancellation is a related issue. If a zero-hours worker is given a shift and it is cancelled at short notice, ERA 2025 introduces a right to compensation for the hours lost. The compensation period and rate are set by the legislation. See our guide on shift cancellation compensation for how to calculate what you owe.

For employers who use zero-hours contracts for genuine operational flexibility, the advice is simple: keep a record of actual hours worked week by week. Review that record at the 12-week mark for each worker. If a regular pattern is evident, consider proactively discussing a contract change before a formal request is made. Workers are more likely to feel respected — and less likely to escalate — when the employer acts first.

Mellow tracks working hours for zero-hours workers and flags when the 12-week threshold is approaching, so you have time to review and respond before a formal request lands. [Start a free trial →](https://mellowhr.com/register)