Labour turnover: formula, UK hospitality benchmarks and a worksheet

Labour turnover is the share of your team who left in a period, worked out as leavers divided by average headcount, times 100. If 22 people left your restaurant last year and you employed 40 on average, your labour turnover was 55%.

Use it to see whether you're losing people faster than you can train them, and to spot which roles, shifts or managers lose the most. This page covers the formula, how to count headcount when half your team works part time, voluntary and involuntary leavers, the early-leaver rate, a stability figure, what a leaver costs you (in a made-up example you can swap your own numbers into), the UK rules you have to follow when someone leaves, what the published benchmarks measure, and a worksheet you can copy.

Labour turnover at a glance

The first line is the standard formula you'll find in UK HR guides such as Factorial's guide to labour turnover and the TutorChase A-level business notes on labour turnover. The 90-day window and the stability figure are the definitions we use on this page. Other people pick different windows, so check the definition before you compare your figure with anyone else's.

The formula

Formula: labour turnover rate = number of leavers in the period ÷ average number of employees in the period × 100

Say you had 100 people at the start of the month and 110 at the end, so your average headcount was (100 + 110) ÷ 2 = 105. Five people left during the month, so your turnover for the month was 5 ÷ 105 × 100 = 4.76%.

Three rules keep the number honest.

1. Count leavers by their last day worked. Someone who hands in notice on 25 March and works until 22 April is an April leaver.
2. Use the same period for leavers and headcount. A year of leavers over one month's headcount gives you nonsense.
3. Count each person once. If one person holds two part-time contracts with you, they're one employee.

Average headcount when your team changes every week

The start-plus-end method works when headcount is steady. In a restaurant it often isn't. You might employ 32 people in January and 48 in August. For a year, add up the headcount on the last day of each month and divide by 12. That smooths out the summer peak, and it's the figure you should put under the line.

You can also work out turnover on full-time equivalents (FTE) instead of people. We don't recommend it for hospitality. A part-time server who leaves takes the same training, the same uniform and the same right to work check to replace as a full-timer, so counting them as 0.4 of a leaver understates the work.

Monthly or annual

Monthly figures are useful because you can act on them. Annual figures are what everyone quotes. To get an annual figure, add up the leavers for the 12 months and divide by the average headcount for the 12 months. Multiplying one month by 12 gives you a rough guide (4.76% × 12 is about 57%), but one bad month after Christmas will throw it off.

Who counts as a leaver

Split leavers into four types.

Factorial uses the same voluntary and involuntary split in its labour turnover guide, and TutorChase's notes include resignations, retirements, dismissals and redundancies in the leaver count.

Internal moves are optional. We'd leave them out of the headline figure and track them on their own line. The server who moved to the bar is still your employee, but the floor still needs a new server, so you'll want to see the gap somewhere.

Seasonal staff need a decision too. If you hire 15 people for the summer on fixed-term contracts that end in September, counting all 15 as leavers will make September look like a disaster. Either leave planned contract ends out of the headline figure, or report two numbers: all leavers, and leavers who weren't due to go. Write the rule down and keep it the same every year.

Voluntary turnover tells you the most

When someone resigns, they're telling you something about pay, hours, managers, or the work itself. Dismissals tell you more about hiring. Split your leavers by type every month, and add a short reason code from a list you keep the same.

You'll get honest reasons more often in an exit interview run by someone other than the leaver's own manager, or through an anonymous feedback channel. Your own reason codes will tell you more about your team than a national survey would.

The early-leaver rate

Formula: early-leaver rate = starters who left within 90 days ÷ all starters in the period × 100

Second-hand figures suggest a lot of hospitality leavers go in the first weeks. Spoke & Stringer's UK hospitality staff turnover round-up cites YouGov polling via a recruiter saying 42% of UK hospitality staff leave within 30 days, and another firm's figure of about 30% leaving within 90 days. Both are second-hand, and we haven't seen the original surveys, so treat them as a sign of the pattern rather than a benchmark.

Your own early-leaver rate tells you more. If you hired 25 people last year and nine of them left within 90 days, your early-leaver rate was 9 ÷ 25 × 100 = 36%.

A high early-leaver rate usually points to one of three things you can fix:

• The job advert or the interview promised different hours or pay from what the rota gave.
• The first shifts were chaotic. Nobody was assigned to look after the new starter, and the training wasn't signed off.
• The new starter was put on the worst shifts straight away.

A written onboarding plan, a named buddy for the first two weeks, and a training sign-off for each station deal with the second point. A check-in at day 7 and day 30 deals with the first and third, because you hear about the problem while you can still change the rota.

The stability figure

Turnover counts how many people left. It doesn't tell you whether they were the same few roles turning over again and again while your core team stayed put.

Formula (our definition): stability = people employed today who were also employed 12 months ago ÷ headcount 12 months ago × 100

If you had 38 people on 1 October last year and 21 of those same people are still with you today, your stability figure is 21 ÷ 38 × 100 = 55.3%.

Put the two numbers side by side. A site with 60% turnover and 80% stability has a steady core and a churn problem in a few roles, often weekend floor staff or kitchen porters. A site with 60% turnover and 40% stability is losing its experienced people, and that's the one to worry about, because they're the ones who train everyone else.

What a leaver costs

We found no official UK figure for what it costs to replace a hospitality worker. The CIPD's analysis of UK turnover makes the point that in sectors with lower-paid roles and transferable skills, "the costs in terms of training someone new, and the loss of firm-specific capital are much lower, and thus a higher churn rate is less damaging". It also says turnover is a problem where skills are scarce or vacancies are hard to fill. In restaurants, that's often your chefs.

So work out your own figure. The example below is made up. Swap in your own numbers.

The £16.14 is the fully loaded cost of an hour at the National Living Wage that we worked out on the sales per labour hour page (pay, employer NI, pension and holiday). If 16 people resign in a year, this example adds up to 16 × £1,023.36 = £16,373.76, before you count lost sales from a short-staffed Saturday or the extra waste while a new chef learns the specs.

These costs also land in your other numbers. Shadow shifts add hours without adding sales, so they pull down sales per labour hour. A new cook who isn't up to speed on portions pushes up food cost percentage. That's why labour turnover sits on the list of restaurant KPIs worth checking every month.

UK benchmarks and what they measure

Every UK hospitality turnover figure you'll find online traces back to one of two sources. They measure different things, so they give different answers.

CIPD analysis of ONS data

The CIPD's benchmarking employee turnover article, published on 11 June 2024, uses the ONS Annual Population Survey. It puts average UK churn at 34%, made up of 27.4% who moved to a new employer and 6.6% who weren't working a year later. By sector, it runs from 25% in public administration and defence to 52% in hospitality (accommodation and food services), for January 2022 to December 2023. Hospitality is the highest of any sector.

This is a household survey, so it counts people who changed employer, including people who left hospitality altogether. It's the closest thing to an official UK figure. The CIPD also has a turnover and retention factsheet for HR teams.

RotaCloud's customer data (vendor data)

RotaCloud, a rota software company, analysed more than 4,000 of its customer accounts from January to December 2024, as reported by Catering Scotland. It found 38.7% turnover in hospitality and catering, the highest of its industry groups. Within hospitality, it found 47% in bars and clubs, 43.2% in quick-service restaurants, 39.1% in restaurants and cafes, 34% in catering and events, and 30% in delis and bakeries.

This is vendor data. It covers businesses that use one rota product, and the method isn't published in full. It's still useful because it splits hospitality by type of business, which the CIPD figure doesn't. The same release, as carried by Retail Times, puts retail at 25.2%. That's the figure to compare with if you also run a food shop.

HR Data Hub's turnover by industry page and Spoke & Stringer both put the two figures side by side. Spoke & Stringer's explanation for the gap is that the CIPD figure counts everyone who left the sector, while the RotaCloud figure is employer-reported.

Opinion, labelled as opinion

You'll see "healthy" turnover targets quoted a lot. In the same Catering Scotland piece, RotaCloud's co-founder James Lintern says losing 15% of your employees a year "is considered a 'healthy' turnover rate", and that "in industries like hospitality and retail, 25% may be a more realistic figure to aim for". Factorial says 10% or below "suggests strong workforce stability" and above 20% "may warrant investigation". Those are opinions. We found no official source for any of these targets.

US figures

For US comparisons, the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes the JOLTS separations rate. In JOLTS Table 20, accommodation and food services had an annual average total separations rate of 5.5% in 2025, down from 7.1% in 2021. That's a monthly rate, so it isn't comparable with a UK annual figure. Multiplying by 12 gives roughly 66% a year, but treat that as a rough guide, because it's US data and counts every separation.

What to use instead

Compare yourself with yourself. Track your annual rate, your voluntary rate and your early-leaver rate every month, and look at the trend over 12 months. If you want an outside figure, use the CIPD 52% as the sector-wide number and the RotaCloud sub-sector figures as a rough guide for your type of business, with the caveats above.

Remember the job market you're hiring into, too. The ONS jobs and vacancies bulletin for September 2026 shows accommodation and food service activities with a vacancy rate of 2.8% in June to August 2026, joint second-highest with finance and insurance, behind mining and quarrying at 2.9%. When the industry has lots of open jobs, your team has plenty of options.

What the law says when someone leaves

Turnover is also paperwork. Each leaver has steps you have to get right, and a busy month of leavers is when they get missed. This is a summary of the GOV.UK guidance. For anything unusual, get advice.

Notice

If an employee resigns, they must give at least a week's notice if they've been in the job for more than a month, unless their contract says longer. GOV.UK's handing in your notice guide covers pay during the notice period and garden leave.

If you end someone's employment, they're entitled to the notice in their contract or the statutory minimum, whichever is longer, as GOV.UK's dismissal guide explains. The statutory minimum, set out on the redundancy notice periods page, is at least one week if they've worked for you between one month and two years, one week for each year between 2 and 12 years, and 12 weeks after 12 years.

Dismissal

If you dismiss someone, GOV.UK's guide to what an employer must do says you must show a valid reason you can justify, and that you acted reasonably. You must be consistent, too, so you can't dismiss one person for something you let others do. GOV.UK lists the reasons you can dismiss someone. An employee with two years' service can ask for a written statement of the reasons, and you have to supply it within 14 days. That qualifying period drops to six months for dismissals with an effective date of termination on or after 1 January 2027, under paragraph 1(2) of Schedule 3 to the Employment Rights Act 2025.

Unfair dismissal and the qualifying period

In England, Scotland and Wales, an employee usually needs two years' continuous service before they can claim "ordinary" unfair dismissal, under section 108 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. That changes on 1 January 2027. Section 25 of the Employment Rights Act 2025 replaces "two years" with "six months", and regulation 3 of SI 2026/559 brings it into force on that date. Regulation 4 says the new period applies where the effective date of termination falls on or after 1 January 2027, even if you dismissed the person before then. The government's unfair dismissal factsheet says people who already have six months' service get the protection straight away.

This matters for your early leavers. Today, someone you let go at month four or month eighteen usually can't bring an ordinary unfair dismissal claim. From 1 January 2027, anyone past six months can. If your 90-day check-ins and probation reviews are where you decide whether a new starter stays, hold them on time and write down what was said.

Two limits apply either way. Section 108(3) lists the automatically unfair reasons, such as pregnancy or whistleblowing, where no qualifying period applies, and the factsheet confirms the 2025 Act keeps these as day-one protections. If you employ people in Northern Ireland, the period is still one year, under Article 140 of the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996. The change doesn't reach Northern Ireland, because section 158(1)(a) of the Employment Rights Act 2025 says "Parts 1, 2 and 4 of this Act extend to England and Wales and Scotland", and section 25 is in Part 1.

Final pay and holiday

You have to pay for untaken statutory leave when someone leaves, even if you dismissed them for gross misconduct. GOV.UK covers this on its page about taking holiday before leaving a job. Statutory leave is 5.6 weeks a year, which is 28 days for someone working five days a week, as the main holiday entitlement guide explains. Irregular-hours and part-year workers have their own rules on that page, and a lot of hospitality staff fall into those groups.

P45 and payroll

"You must give your employee a P45 when they leave", says HMRC's guidance on when an employee leaves. Report the leaving date on your next payroll submission. If you rehire someone you've already given a P45, they need a new payroll ID.

Right to work for the replacement

Every replacement needs a right to work check before they start. The Home Office employer's guide to right to work checks was updated in September 2026, so check you're using the current version. High turnover means more checks, and more chances to miss one. A compliance renewals list helps you keep track of documents with expiry dates.

How to lower labour turnover

The usual causes are too much work, no recognition, poor culture, bad relationships with managers, limited growth, poor management and low pay. They're all real. A list like that can't tell you which one is hurting you. Your reason codes and your early-leaver rate can.

The research doesn't hand you an answer either. Bolt, Winterton and Cafferkey's systematic review of a century of labour turnover research looked at 1,375 studies. They found that a lot of recent work measures people's intention to leave instead of whether they left. So be careful with any survey that tells you what "makes staff stay".

Start with the changes that cost least and show up fastest in your own figures.

Fix the first 90 days

If your early-leaver rate is high, start here. Give every new starter a written plan for their first two weeks, a named buddy on each shift, and training they sign off station by station. Our restaurant training and kitchen training pages cover what to include. Check in at day 7 and day 30 and ask what isn't what they expected.

Give people the hours they were promised

If HRS keeps coming up in your reason codes, look at the rota first. Some people want more, some want fewer, and most want to know them more than a few days ahead. Publish the rota early and keep the core shifts the same week to week where you can. When you cut hours to protect your labour cost percentage, check whose hours you're cutting. Cutting the newest starter's hours is quick, and it often leads to an early leaver.

Make managers part of it

If MGR keeps coming up, look at how managers spend time with their team. Regular one-to-ones, even ten minutes a month, give you a chance to hear about problems early. A daily pre-shift huddle keeps the team talking. Watch for the signs in our guides to staff flight risk and staff thinking about leaving: swapping shifts away, going quiet in huddles, sudden requests for references.

Track turnover by manager as well as by site. If one manager's team has double the turnover of everyone else's, you'll want to sit down with that manager before the next person goes.

Pay

Check your rates against what's on offer within walking distance, including tips and service charge. You don't have to be the highest payer, but if your pay is well below the places nearby, your PAY reason code will tell you. A clear, fair split of tips matters as well, and your team will talk about it if the split looks unfair.

Show people where they can go

Promotion from within keeps your best people and lowers your hiring costs. A clear step from server to supervisor, or commis to chef de partie, with the training to get there, gives people a reason to stay another year. Our front of house team, kitchen team, bar team and hotel team guides set out the roles.

Common mistakes

Counting the resignation date instead of the leaving date moves leavers into the wrong month. Use the last day worked.

Dividing by the headcount at the end of the year instead of the average will make your rate look lower if you grew, and higher if you shrank.

Mixing in seasonal contract ends without saying so makes September look like a crisis. Report planned contract ends separately, or note that they're included.

Comparing a monthly rate with an annual benchmark is easy to do by accident. The BLS rate of 5.5% is monthly, and the CIPD 52% is annual.

Quoting a benchmark without its source is common online. If a figure doesn't say who measured it and how, treat it as opinion. One UK article we read quotes a "15%" healthy turnover figure with no source we could trace.

Changing the rules between years makes the trend meaningless. If you start counting internal moves in 2027, restate 2026 the same way, or mark the break.

Your monthly labour turnover worksheet

Copy this into a spreadsheet. Fill in the inputs each month. The outputs are formulas.

Inputs

Outputs

Add a column for each site and each manager. Put R3, R6 and R7 on the same chart, so you can see whether you're losing new starters or experienced staff.

How often to check it

Update the worksheet monthly, after payroll. Look at the 12-month figures each month, because a single month can swing a lot in a small team. Each quarter, read the reason codes and the exit interview notes together. Review the targets once a year, against your own trend and the CIPD figure. Use the RotaCloud sub-sector numbers as a rough guide only, since they're vendor data.

If you run more than one site, compare sites on the same rules, and look at the manager column before you look at the site column.

Frequently asked questions

How do you calculate labour turnover?

Divide the number of people who left in a period by your average headcount in the same period, and multiply by 100. If 22 people left last year and you employed 40 on average, your labour turnover was 55%.

What is the average labour turnover in UK hospitality?

The CIPD's analysis of ONS data puts it at 52% for 2022 to 2023, the highest of any UK sector, against a UK average of 34%. RotaCloud's customer data, which is vendor data, found 38.7% for hospitality and catering in 2024.

What is a good labour turnover rate?

We found no official UK target. RotaCloud's co-founder suggests 25% as a realistic aim for hospitality, and that's an opinion. Track your own 12-month trend, your voluntary turnover and your early-leaver rate instead.

Do you count seasonal staff as leavers?

You can, but say so. Either leave planned contract ends out of the headline figure, or report two figures: all leavers, and leavers excluding planned contract ends.

What's the difference between labour turnover and the stability figure?

Labour turnover counts how many people left. The stability figure counts how many of the people you had 12 months ago are still with you. Together they tell you whether you're losing new starters or your experienced core team.