At a Glance

• The UK Government has opened a new consultation on the significant zero hours contracts measures in the Employment Rights Act 2025 (ERA 2025), with responses due by August 25, 2026.
• The consultation seeks views on the detailed rules that will underpin three new rights for qualifying workers (and agency workers): a right to be offered guaranteed hours, a right to reasonable notice of shifts, and a right to payment where shifts are cancelled, curtailed or moved at short notice. The stated policy aim is to reduce insecurity for zero-hours and low-hours workers while preserving enough flexibility for businesses to respond to changing demand.
• Much will depend on where the Government lands on the detail and the options in the consultation are broad and leave open a number of key questions.
• Businesses should consider how these proposals might affect their resourcing models and may wish to consider responding to the consultation.

Guaranteed Hours Offers

The ERA 2025 reforms will introduce a requirement for employers to make guaranteed hours offers (GHOs) to qualifying workers reflecting the hours that they regularly work over a reference period. To qualify, the worker must be on a zero-hours contract or on a contract that guarantees a low number of hours under a certain threshold. The ERA 2025 does not set out the detail of this, but instead regulations are required to determine who falls within scope and how the GHO is calculated. The first part of the consultation...

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