Shift work laws in the UK

Summarising the key laws on shift work

Navigating UK shift work law

Understanding how employment law and shift work interact is crucial to ensure your organisation remains compliant and avoids breaches that can lead to costly human, financial and reputational impacts.

Whilst general UK employment law applies to shift work roles, the nature of shift work creates additional considerations.

To protect shift workers’ health and rights, the UK has specific laws and regulations governing shift patterns and shift scheduling, rest between shifts and night shifts.

UK shift work law is dynamic and changing.

You must anticipate potential new shift work legislation and ensure your shift work policy, processes and systems remain aligned.

This article briefly looks at just a few of the key laws on shift work.

It will form part of a series where our shift work experts will go much deeper into each of the individual shift work regulations and how you should factor them into your approach to shift pattern design, shift work policy, shift planning and day-to-day rostering.

Shift length laws in the UK

Whilst UK shift work law does not set a maximum length for a single shift, shift lengths are effectively limited by three factors relating to the Working Time Regulations 1998.

This is the law that applies the EU Working Time Directive in the UK and covers shift work.

It’s worth noting people often use the terms Working Time Regulations and Working Time Directive interchangeably.

The Working Time Regulations are based on the European Working Time Directive.

Although the UK is not a member of the EU, the Working Time Regulations continue to apply in the UK and should be followed.

1. 48 hour limit Working Time Regulations

Regulation 4 1 of the Working Time Regulations sets a legal weekly working hours limit.

This means that UK shift work law dictates a maximum of 48 hours per week, averaged over a 17-week reference period.

It’s important to remember that all hours count towards the average, including overtime.

Shift workers can choose to opt-out of the 48-hour limit set by the Working Time Regulations individually (often to be able to earn overtime), but these opt-outs must be voluntary and be documented in writing.

You cannot force your shift workers to opt out of regulation 4 1 of the Working Time Regulations.

2. Working Time Regulations breaks between shifts

The Working Time Regulations also impacts shift length laws by setting a limit for the time between shifts.

Shift workers must have 11 consecutive hours of rest in every 24-hour period.

In other words, there should be at least 11 hours off between finishing one shift and starting the next.

So if an employee leaves at 8pm, they shouldn’t be on shift again before 7am the next day.

The rules around working time between shifts effectively creates a shift length law, as it establishes a legal maximum of 13-hour shifts.

When considering the need for contingency around handovers, over-runs and overtime, then many see 12 hours to be a practical maximum (it also makes 24-hour continuous operations easier to plan and manage, with two sets of 12-hour shifts).

Capping at 13 hours (or 12 hours in reality) ensures there is at least 11 hours before the next shift starts.

Any longer and it increases the risk of breaching shift work laws in the UK.

3. Rest breaks and Working Time Regulations

Rest breaks another part of the Working Time Regulations which effectively creates a shift length law.

In each 7-day period, an adult worker is entitled to at least 24 hours uninterrupted rest (one full day off).

Like time between shifts, there is some flexibility in how you can apply rest breaks within the Working Time Regulations.

You can use a longer reference period to give 48 hours rest per fortnight (e.g. 2 days off every 14 days) to meet this shift work law.

Many employers schedule two days off per week as standard, but at minimum you must ensure the equivalent of one day off per week to be compliant with the weekly rest requirements set out under the Working Time Regulations.

Shift Patterns

Finding shift patterns that balance the needs of your organisation and shift workers can be a slow and painful process.

optashift’s Shift Pattern Design service combines data science, expert insight and collaboration to create shift patterns that are fully optimised for your performance and people.

Exceptions to shift length laws

When considering shift length laws it’s important to remember that Working Time Regulations are stricter when it comes to shift workers under the age of 18.

They cannot ordinarily work more than 8 hours a day, or over 40 hours a week. They also cannot opt-out of these limits like adults over the age of 18 can.

A further exception to shift length laws relates to specific industries or scenarios.

Longer shifts (e.g. 14-16 hours) can be used exceptional situations and in certain sectors which have slightly different rules or reference periods. (e.g. emergency services, transport, armed forces, healthcare, oil rigs).

In these cases additional compensatory for shift workers rest is provided.

However you need to be careful with extended shifts due to wider responsibilities under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

Research shows fatigue risk increases on very long shifts which, in turn, can lead to increased error and accident rates.

So, any regular use of shifts beyond 12 hours should be underpinned by detailed risk assessments and additional mitigation measures like additional breaks and task rotation.

A crucial consideration when it comes to fatigue and shift length laws is overtime.

Whilst you may operate with shifts of 12 hours or under, routinely relying on overtime to provide cover can lead to inadvertent Working Time Regulations breaches and increased shift work fatigue risk.

We typically work with organisations in to develop shift work Fatigue Risk Management Systems that establish a framework of policy, solutions, monitoring and shift worker engagement to mitigate as much risk as possible.

Legal hours between shifts

Ensuring shift workers have adequate rest and recouperation is a cornerstone of shift work law.

As identified in the previous section, the law on how many hours between shifts is clear.

When it comes to breaks between shifts Working Time Regulations clearly stipulate that there must be 11 consecutive hours of rest in every 24-hour period.

This shift work regulation impacts back-to-back shift arrangements.

For example you cannot schedule 8-hour shifts back-to-back with just an 8-hour gap as this would not provide the legal hours between shifts required.

Asking shift workers to provide additional cover via overtime (either before or after their core shift) can impinge on the 11-hour rule and breach shift work law if compensatory rest is not subsequently provided.

Likewise, you must factor in shift work law around weekly rest periods, which entitles an adult shift worker to at least 24 hours uninterrupted rest per week (or 48 hours rest if extended to fortnight).

This has a further impact on how you design shift patterns and arrange cover to ensure the legal hours between shifts is not breached.

You also need to keep in mind the impact of commuting.

Many shift workers will spend significant time driving to and from their place of work.

Whilst commuting time isn’t counted as work, a colleague who regularly works long shifts with minimal rest may be a safety risk on the road.

Despite it not being covered by shift work law, it should still form part of an employer’s duty of care to the shift worker and other road users.

Wider organisational accountability and liability should be taken into consideration when it comes to Corporate Manslaughter and the impact of inadequate risk assessments or health and safety procedures.

Shift Work Assessment

Optimising shift patterns and shift work delivers huge benefits…but complexity and competing priorities sees many organisations leave things as they are.

Our Shift Work Assessment is a streamlined process which quickly analyses all relevant operational and HR factors to give you a tailored plan for immediate improvement.

UK night shift laws

Night work puts additional strain on shift workers, so it comes with additional protections under UK shift work legislation.

Night shift laws apply to individuals who work at least 3 hours during the default period of 11 pm to 6 am (however you can specify a different 7-hour period in your employment contract).

Rest breaks for night shift workers are more stringent, stipulating that over a 17-week reference period an employee must not work more than an average of 8 hours at night in a 24-hour period.

However, this aspect of night shift laws does allow for 12-hour night shifts, so long as the average hours worked at night over a 17-week period is 8 hours or less.

This requires your approach to shift pattern design to include strategically placed day shifts and rest days.

For example shift patterns like 4 on 4 off, rotating 12 hour day and night shifts ensure that over a 17-week period the average night working is 6.04 hours per 24 hours (or 42.35 hours over 17 weeks).

Another key consideration when it comes to night shift law is that the 8 hour working time limit applies per single night if the work involves ‘special’ hazards or ‘heavy’ physical and/or mental strain.

This means in roles like control rooms for chemical plants only 8-hour shifts with no overtime are permissible under UK night shift laws.

Taking an average over the 17-week reference period would increase health and safety risk and result in a breach.

As with all aspects of shift work law, monitoring and recording shift work data is crucial.

UK night shift laws require employers to keep records of night shift workers’ hours to show they’re not exceeding the 8-hour average and that these records are kept for at least 2 years.

This makes the capabilities of the processes and systems you use to plan and manage shift work vital to compliance with night shift laws.

Rest breaks for night shift workers

The legal rest breaks for night shift workers mirrors wider shift work law, with employees entitled to 11 hours daily rest and weekly rest of 24 hours uninterrupted rest every 7 days.

However if you use rotating shift patterns, rest periods for night shift workers sometimes needs to be balanced differently.

UK night shift laws don’t mandate how you rotate shifts, but failing to allow recovery time can risk breaching your general duty to protect employee health (with fatigue risk management a key responsibility under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974).

When it comes to night shift to day shift rest period, there is no explicit UK night shift law.

Best practice around rest breaks for night shift workers is to give longer rest when transitioning from nights to days.

Many employers roster a ‘rest day’ after a block of night shifts, recognising the challenges of night work and the need for recovery.

For instance, someone working four consecutive night shifts might then have 2-3 days off before resuming day shifts.

Shift Work Health

The effects of shift work on physical and mental health are clear…so responsible employers need to provide shift workers with tailored support across sleep, nutrition, exercise and social issues.

optashift will help you deliver a programme that blends strategic, operational, practical and technical solutions that are designed in collaboration with your workforce.

Health and safety for night shift workers

Specific health and safety responsibilities are not part of UK night shift laws as they fall under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

This is a broad topic we will cover in subsequent articles and covers a range of aspects that are especially pertinent to ensuring health and safety for night shift workers.

For example regulations and guidance stress that employers should provide suitable break facilities for night staff (somewhere to rest) and that increased safety monitoring at night is recommended.

This is because in many environments staffing and supervisor cover is less at night.

As such, emergency procedures and lone working policies are a crucial consideration when it comes to Health and safety for night shift workers.

Night work risk assessment

A key requirement under UK night shift laws is to offer your employees a free night work risk assessment.

This need to be offered at the point they start night work and then regularly afterwards (ideally at least annually).

Night work risk assessments are supposed to detect if night shifts are impacting a shift worker’s health.

Whilst this will make you compliant with UK night shift laws, it is the bare minimum.

We advocate that employers take a more holistic approach, building on the concept of a night work risk assessment to provide more sustained support for shift workers, including tailored and sustained fatigue, health and wellbeing assessment and support.

You can read more about our approach here.

Shift pattern change law

Employers often need to change shift patterns, lengthen/shorten shifts or reassign staff for operational reasons.

While there’s no single shift pattern change law in the UK, several legal considerations apply when changing employees’ working hours.

The first is around employment contract obligations.

An employee’s shift pattern, hours or shift start and end times often form part of their contract (either explicitly or implicitly).

Therefore shift pattern change requires consultation and agreement both with Trade Unions and shift workers themselves.

When it comes to shift pattern change law, acting unilaterally risks breach of contract or constructive dismissal claims.

Even if your employment contracts have flexibility (such as stating ‘varied shifts as required’), you must still act reasonably when changing shift patterns.

For example, whilst there is no fixed period you must provide shift change notice, you need to provide ‘reasonable’ notice.

The more significant the change, the more notice or consultation should occur (typically months for major shift pattern change).

A key aspect to consider when changing shift patterns is the wider law that covers discrimination.

If shift changing employees’ working hours disproportionately affects those with certain protected characteristics, it could be indirectly discriminatory unless justified.

This complexity and sensitivity is why optashift take a fully-engaged approach to changing shift patterns.

It’s vital to ensure shift workers are aware of the rationale for change, there is collaboration to help inform the new shift patterns and that they are engaged with in a clear, timely and meaningful way throughout the process.

If you’d like to know more, you can read this 3 step-guide to changing shift patterns.

It’s a good idea to go beyond the statutory compliance requirement and use change management, employee engagement and collaboration best practice when changing shift patterns.

Taking a more holistic approach will increase the opportunity for successful shift pattern change whilst maximising the benefits across productivity, capacity, efficiency, absence, accidents, errors, waste, service, job satisfaction and shift worker health and wellbeing.

Shift work law and overtime regulations

Overtime itself isn’t regulated, but it does link to several areas of shift work law covered earlier (like staying within the boundaries set by the Working Time Regulations in relation to time between shifts, breaks etc).

When it comes to pay, many employers pay ‘time-and-a-half’ or similar for overtime as a policy, but this is not mandated by law.

Labour market forces typically dictate that overtime attracts a shift premia.

If overtime is voluntary, the shift worker can refuse with no penalty under overtime regulations.

If overtime is mandatory (e.g. required in emergencies or peak times) it should be stated in your employment contract and be reasonable, not excessive and not discriminatory in how it’s assigned.

Standby Working Time Regulations

Standby (also known as on-call) is used by some employers to secure short notice cover if needed, whilst ensuring shift workers are aware there is the possibility of being asked to work.

An example would be a field service technician who is at home, but may have to respond to an overnight call-out.

The Working Time Regulations are clear when it comes to standby.

If a shift worker is required to be at the workplace (or another place dictated by employer) and ready to work, that standby time counts as working time.

For employees in the UK with no fixed place of work (like field service engineers), travel from home to the first assignment or job also counts as working time (whereas commuting to a fixed place of work is not counted as working time).

However if they are on standby at home (free to do as they please but must respond to a call), this is not counted as working time until they are called-out.

When it comes to standby, the Working Time Directive makes these distinctions clear, which has an impact on wider shift work law.

In circumstances where standby counts as working time, it impacts all the other limits set out in the Working Time Regulations around maximum working hours and rest periods (covered earlier in this article).

It’s worth noting that many employers ensure standby and on-call allowances are included in base salaries and different pay rates for working and sleep time.

For example, many Ambulance Service professionals and field service engineers in Utilities receive a fixed payment as part of their salary that is calculated based on working time and if they are called in to work.