What Should an Employment Contract Contain?

An employment contract should set out the employment relationship clearly enough that both sides know what has been agreed and the employer is not left trying to fill important gaps after a dispute has arisen.

There is also a statutory minimum. Employers must give employees and workers a written statement of employment particulars. The principal statement must be provided on or before the first day of work, with certain additional information supplied within two months. But that statutory statement is not the same thing as the employment contract itself.

A good contract normally goes further. It should reflect how the employee actually works, what the business expects and the flexibility or protection the employer genuinely needs.

Employment contract vs written particulars

An employment contract is the legal agreement governing the relationship. Its terms can come from written documents, verbal agreements, incorporated policies, collective agreements, implied terms and terms imposed by law.

The written statement of employment particulars is narrower. It records specified information that legislation requires the employer to provide in writing.

An employee can therefore have an employment contract even if nobody has signed a document headed “Employment Contract”. A contract may exist before work starts where a sufficiently clear job offer has been accepted, and it will ordinarily exist once employment begins even if the employer has failed to provide the required written statement.

For employers, the practical objective should be to satisfy the written-particular requirements while also creating a contract that gives useful clarity about the actual relationship.

What must employers provide in writing?

Employees and workers are generally entitled to a written statement of employment particulars. Workers who began their engagement before 6 April 2020 are subject to different transitional rules.

The current requirements can be divided broadly as follows:

If the employee or worker will work outside the UK for more than one month, additional information is required about the period abroad, currency of payment, additional remuneration or benefits and arrangements relating to return to the UK.

Employers must also notify employees or workers of relevant changes to their written particulars within the statutory period, generally within one month of the change.

From 30 October 2026, a further Employment Rights Act 2025 measure is scheduled to introduce a duty to give workers information concerning their right to join a trade union. That requirement is not yet in force as at 9 September 2026.

Names, dates and job role

The contract should identify the employer and employee accurately. This matters particularly where a group has several companies and it may otherwise be unclear which legal entity employs the individual.

The start date should be recorded, together with the employee’s continuous-employment date where earlier service counts towards continuity.

The job title and duties should then explain what the employee has been engaged to do. Avoid making the duties so narrow that ordinary development of the role becomes difficult. Equally, a statement that the employee must do anything the employer asks is unlikely to provide useful certainty.

A sensible approach is to describe the main responsibilities and include proportionate scope for other reasonable duties appropriate to the employee’s position.

Place and hours of work

The contract should reflect where the employee will genuinely work.

That may mean one office, several sites, homeworking, hybrid working, client premises or regular travel. If the business genuinely requires mobility, the contract should deal with that deliberately rather than adding an unrestricted mobility clause as boilerplate.

Hours need the same attention. Record the normal working pattern and explain relevant shift arrangements, variable hours, overtime expectations and how working times may change.

If the business uses irregular or zero-hours arrangements, the wording needs particular care. Existing restrictions on exclusivity clauses continue to apply, while new statutory rights concerning guaranteed hours, reasonable notice and short-notice payments are planned for 2027 but are not yet in force. The government’s latest implementation timetable says the detailed timing of those measures will be updated following consultation.

Pay, benefits and holiday

Pay provisions should state the salary or hourly rate, payment frequency and relevant payment arrangements.

Commission and bonus wording deserves more detail. The contract or accompanying scheme should make clear how entitlement arises, when payment is calculated, what happens if targets change and how leaving employment affects outstanding payments. A supposedly discretionary scheme can still create disputes if its wording and actual operation do not match.

Benefits should also be categorised properly. If the business wants a benefit to remain discretionary or capable of being changed, the documentation should not accidentally promise it as an unconditional contractual entitlement.

Most workers are currently entitled to 5.6 weeks’ paid statutory holiday each year. Bank holidays can count towards that entitlement; they do not automatically have to be additional days. Contracts should explain the employer’s holiday year, entitlement and any rules needed around contractual leave above the statutory minimum.

Sick pay, leave, pensions and training

The written particulars must address sick pay and sickness procedures, although some information can be supplied by reference to another accessible document.

Employers should distinguish statutory entitlement from any enhanced company sick-pay scheme. Statutory Sick Pay changed on 6 April 2026, including removal of the waiting period and Lower Earnings Limit, so old contract wording should not simply be carried forward without review.

Pension arrangements form part of the wider written-particular requirements. They sit alongside the employer’s separate automatic-enrolment duties. Eligible staff must generally be enrolled into a qualifying workplace pension and the employer must provide the prescribed pension information.

Compulsory training should be identified, including whether the employer pays for it. If the employer expects to recover particular training costs in defined circumstances, that requires careful drafting and must also operate consistently with the rules governing deductions from wages.

Probationary periods

There is currently no statutory requirement to use a probationary period and no universal legal maximum or minimum length. The appropriate period depends on the role.

Where probation is used, the contract should explain:

• how long it lasts;
• what standards are being assessed;
• when it will be reviewed;
• any different notice arrangements during probation; and
• whether, and in what circumstances, the period may be extended.

Do not assume that a probation clause removes normal employment-law risks. Discrimination, whistleblowing, contractual and other protections can apply regardless of length of service.

The Employment Rights Act 2025 is also relevant to current drafting. For dismissals taking effect before 1 January 2027, the ordinary unfair-dismissal qualifying period remains two years. From 1 January 2027, it is scheduled to reduce to six months. The Act does not itself impose a six-month maximum on probation periods.

That makes active probation management more important. Employers should address problems while evidence is fresh rather than allowing a probation period to expire without a meaningful review. Where performance is the concern, our guide on how to manage poor performance explains the wider approach.

Notice and termination

The contract should state the notice expected from the employee and the notice the employer will provide.

Contractual notice cannot take away an employee’s statutory minimum entitlement. Where the contractual period is longer, the contractual wording will normally govern.

Employers should also decide whether they want express powers dealing with:

Payment in lieu of notice

A PILON clause can allow the employer to end employment immediately and make the relevant contractual payment instead of requiring notice to be worked.

The drafting should explain what the payment covers rather than leaving the calculation uncertain. Acas confirms that contractual provision may allow payment in lieu of working notice.

Garden leave

Garden leave keeps the employee employed during notice but away from normal duties or the workplace. It can be useful where the employee has access to commercially sensitive information, clients or colleagues.

If the employer expects to be able to require garden leave, appropriate contractual wording should be included rather than assuming the power will always exist.

Disciplinary and grievance terms

Employers must provide the required disciplinary and grievance information, but that does not mean the entire procedure should automatically become contractual.

Detailed procedures are often better kept in a staff handbook or separate policy, with the contract making clear where they can be found and whether they are contractual.

This preserves greater operational flexibility while still giving employees clarity. The correct approach depends on the wording and the circumstances; labelling something “non-contractual” is not a licence to ignore other legal obligations.

For the wider process, see our disciplinary procedure for employers and grievance procedure for employers guides.

Confidentiality, intellectual property and data

For many employers, confidentiality is one of the areas where the contract should go beyond the statutory written-particular minimum.

An express confidentiality clause can identify the business information that genuinely needs protecting and explain the employee’s obligations during and, where appropriate, after employment. Employees already owe certain implied duties, including a duty of fidelity, but clear drafting can reduce arguments over what the employer regarded as confidential.

Confidentiality wording should not be drafted so broadly that it purports to prevent lawful protected disclosures or other communications the law permits.

Businesses whose employees create software, designs, content, inventions or other intellectual property should also consider whether express intellectual-property provisions are appropriate to the role.

Data protection and monitoring rules often need a different approach. Detailed privacy information and operational monitoring standards will frequently sit more appropriately in policies and privacy notices, with the contract containing only the contractual provisions genuinely required.

Restrictive covenants

Restrictive covenants may help protect legitimate business interests after an employee leaves. Depending on the role, they can include restrictions on competition, solicitation of clients, dealing with clients or poaching employees.

They should not be added simply because a template contains them.

Acas currently advises that restrictive covenants will not usually be enforceable unless they are clear, specific and time-restricted, and recognises that enforceability is a complex area.

A narrower restriction directed at a real business interest can be more useful than a sweeping clause that attempts to prevent almost any competitive activity.

There is also an important currentness point. A previous government proposal contemplated a statutory three-month limit for non-compete clauses, but that limit has not become the current statutory rule. The government instead published a further working paper on reform options in 2025, which closed in February 2026. Employers should therefore not draft on the assumption that a statutory three-month cap already exists.

Deductions, flexibility and mobility

If the employer may need to make particular deductions — for example for agreed training costs, overused contractual holiday, loans or specified property — the contract should address these carefully.

The Employment Rights Act 1996 restricts deductions from wages. A deduction may be permitted where the contract specifically authorises it or the worker has agreed to it in writing beforehand, but contractual wording does not override every other statutory restriction. National Minimum Wage rules, for example, can affect some deductions.

Flexibility clauses need similar restraint. They can allow defined changes to matters such as hours or location, but they do not give an employer an unlimited power to rewrite the contract.

Acas recommends that flexibility clauses are clear and specific and says they must be used reasonably. Consultation, reasonable notice, individual circumstances and discrimination risk may all matter when a clause is exercised.

What belongs in a policy instead?

Not every rule belongs in the employment contract.

Detailed disciplinary procedures, grievance procedures, absence-reporting rules, expenses, IT use, data protection, social media standards, homeworking arrangements and other operational requirements can often be managed more effectively through policies or a staff handbook.

The important question is whether the employer intends a provision to be a binding contractual promise.

Making every policy contractual can make routine changes unnecessarily difficult. Keeping everything outside the contract can create the opposite problem if an important entitlement or obligation is left unclear.

The distinction should therefore be deliberate. Documents should also be consistent: an employee handbook should not promise something different from the contract.

When should contracts be reviewed?

Contracts should be reviewed when the business changes, not only when legislation changes.

Common triggers include new benefits, revised commission schemes, hybrid working, restructuring, changing working patterns, new senior appointments or disputes that expose gaps in existing wording.

Legal reform is another trigger. The programme of Employment Rights Act 2025 changes extending through 2026 and 2027 means employers should expect to revisit employment documentation as commencement dates and final regulations take effect.

Where an existing employee’s contractual terms need to change, that is a separate exercise from drafting the original document. See our guide to changing an employee’s contract before attempting to impose revised terms.

Common contract drafting mistakes

The most common weakness is not necessarily a missing legal phrase. It is a contract that does not match reality.

Typical problems include using an old template, copying clauses the business does not understand, inconsistent bonus or commission wording, treating policies as contractual accidentally, using flexibility clauses that are far wider than the business needs, omitting useful PILON or garden-leave provisions and inserting the same restrictive covenants into every role.

Another mistake is allowing actual working arrangements to drift away from the documents. If an employee has worked different hours, from a different location or under a different commission arrangement for years, relying solely on the original wording may create unnecessary uncertainty.

The objective is not to build the longest possible contract. It is to produce one that records the relationship accurately, meets the statutory requirements and deals properly with the issues that matter to that particular employer.

If your documents need reviewing or redrafting, Harrington Raine’s employment contracts and policies service can help. You can also explore our wider HR & Employment Law resources for practical employer guidance.

Frequently asked questions

Does an employee have to receive a document called an “employment contract”?

No. The law requires specified written particulars, but the employment contract itself is the wider legal agreement between the parties. Contractual terms can arise from several sources and a contract can exist even where no single document has been signed.

Do workers have a right to written particulars?

Generally, yes. Employees and workers are entitled to a written statement, although different transitional rules apply to workers whose engagement began before 6 April 2020.

Is an unsigned employment contract automatically unenforceable?

No. A missing signature does not automatically mean there is no contract. Terms may have been agreed verbally, through conduct or in other written communications. Whether a particular disputed term was actually agreed will depend on the facts.

Can an employer change an employment contract later?

Potentially, but a contractual change usually requires agreement or a proper legal basis. A flexibility clause may assist in defined circumstances, but it does not create an unrestricted right to change terms. Employers should consult and assess the particular legal risks before proceeding.

What if the contract does not match how the employee actually works?

That can create disputes about what the current terms really are. Verbal agreements, conduct, incorporated documents and custom and practice can all become relevant. Employers should update documentation when working arrangements materially change rather than allowing an obvious mismatch to continue.

What happens if an employer fails to provide the required written particulars?

An employee or worker can ask an Employment Tribunal to determine what the particulars should have been. Failure to provide compliant particulars can also lead to additional compensation where the individual brings and succeeds in certain other qualifying Tribunal claims. The safer course is to provide accurate particulars from the outset and keep them updated.