Employment Rights Act 2025 and Living Hours: everything you need to know

The Living Wage Foundation welcome the steps the UK government is taking to tackle insecure work in the Employment Rights Act 2025 (ERA).
 

Important ERA measures include the right to a guaranteed hours contract and to reasonable notice of shifts, with some payment to be made to workers for shifts changed at short notice.
 

The Government estimates that 2.1m workers may benefit from these measures. However, 6.1m workers are in insecure work; of which 3.4m are in low-paid insecure work. While 55% of shift workers get less than one week’s notice of their shifts. Insecure work is a problem that will not be solved through this Act alone.

We need a culture change and a business movement that invests in work security. Where businesses provide the stability and security that workers need, they reap the benefits in terms of improved productivity, commitment, morale, reduced sickness absence, recruitment and retention.
 

The detail of workers in scope and how high these standards will be set are still to be consulted on,* with employer implementation not due until 2027.
 

The ERA will constitute a strong floor of new minimum rights, but Living Hours goes further. Read our briefing on the ERA and Living Hours.