Contracted Hours UK

The purpose of this guide is to explain the concept of contracted hours in the UK and how this compares to actual working hours.

What are contracted hours?

Contract hours refer to the agreed number of hours the employer has agreed to provide and pay the employee. A contracted hour is also the number of hours an employee is expected to work during a regular work week, except when other arrangements have been made, such as a shift swap with a colleague. If your employer cannot provide the minimum number of hours, they must pay you in lieu.

Usually, the number of hours worked is stipulated in the employee's contract or employment agreement. However, holidays and sickness often cause actual hours to vary from the contracted ones.

For instance, if the employee's contract stipulates 35 hours of work per week, the employer must ensure the employee can complete that work. This will result in them breaching the contract. Additionally, an employee could violate their employment contract for not working their full 35 hours.

What is the difference between contracted hours & actual hours?

Employees' contracted hours are usually outlined in their contract of employment when they start their new job. The contract will say how, when, and where hours will be worked, including holidays and sick days. Some employees work fewer hours than their contracted hours per week depending on their job. Actual hours are how many hours someone worked.

To compare the two you need a record of the hours actually worked. Time tracking in Shiftbase records clock-ins from a phone, a shared tablet or the browser and puts the hours next to the schedule, so you can check worked hours against the contract before payroll.

The hours worked can be reduced by things like holidays and sickness. The number can also increase if you work overtime. An employee may have to work extra hours when certain conditions arise in a contract, which may be mandatory overtime. There are also situations where reasonable overtime is optional and may even be rewarded.

What about zero-hours contracts?

'Zero Hour Contract' refers to an employment contract where the employer is not required to offer or compensate an employee for a minimum number of work hours.

A typical employment agreement is different because employees are only paid based on their work hours and are not required to accept any job offers.

These contacts are common in the hospitality and gigging industries, delivery driving, warehouses, and care industries, where service demands fluctuate. The zero-hour contract allows employers and employees to adjust staffing levels and income as needed.

How do holiday and sick pay affect things?

A person's actual hours worked will vary depending on whether they are absent or if they receive additional work.

When an employee is absent due to sickness or annual leave, their actual hours worked will be reduced. However, they will increase their actual hours worked if they work overtime.

The most common organization counts annual leave as paid time off, so taking a day off will only affect how many hours the employee gets paid.

Some employers offer sick leave after completing a probationary period, for example, while others don't. As a result, employees should check their company's terms of employment to determine if they qualify for sick leave. In the case of sickness, employees will be compensated for the time they are away from work.

Employees who are off sick may be entitled to Statutory Sick Pay (SSP), which the employer pays for up to 28 weeks. For 2026/27 it is £123.25 a week, or 80% of the employee's average weekly earnings if that is lower.

What happens when you work long hours?

A higher salary is paid to you. Despite that flippant answer, pay overtime is often an important part of an employee's salary. As long as your employer offers overtime regularly, your contracted hours will be the same. Overtime hours are over and above the hours in your contract, and working them is voluntary unless your contract says otherwise.

Some contracts include compulsory overtime. If yours does, you may have to work extra hours when your manager asks.

There are limits, though. Working hours in the UK are governed by the Working Time Regulations 1998: an employee cannot be made to work more than 48 hours a week on average, unless they choose to opt out in writing. If extra hours are becoming the norm in your team, our guide on how to reduce overtime shows how to bring them down.

What happens if there isn't enough work to cover contracted hours?

Contracted hours work in both directions. If you cannot offer an employee the hours in their contract, you normally still have to pay them for those hours. The exceptions are lay-offs and short-time working, and both only work without full pay when the contract allows it.

Lay-offs and short-time working

A lay-off is when you ask an employee to stay at home or take unpaid leave for at least one working day because there is not enough work. Short-time working is when you cut their hours, or their pay to less than half a week's pay, for the same reason.

You can only do either without full pay if the employment contract says so, or if the employee agrees. Without that, cutting hours or pay is a change to the contract, and holding back pay for hours the employee was available to work can be an unlawful deduction from wages.

Statutory guarantee pay

Employees with at least one month's continuous service who are laid off without pay are entitled to statutory guarantee pay: up to £41 a day for 5 days in any 3-month period, so £205 at most (rate from 6 April 2026). Anyone who normally earns less than £41 a day gets their usual daily rate. They lose it for a day if they turn down reasonable alternative work or are not available for work.

How long can a lay-off last?

There is no fixed limit. But if a lay-off or short-time working lasts 4 or more weeks in a row, or 6 or more weeks in a 13-week period (with no more than 3 in a row), the employee can give you written notice that they want to claim redundancy pay. You do not have to pay if normal work will resume within 4 weeks.

Cutting hours permanently

A permanent cut to contracted hours is a change to the contract, so it needs the employee's agreement. Talk it through, put any agreed change in writing, and remember that a cut forced through without agreement can end up at an employment tribunal, usually after Acas early conciliation.