Legal break requirements for UK workers.

The law - The Working Time Regulations 1998.

Besides the obvious health and safety reasons for providing rest breaks to staff, The Working Time Regulations 1998 is the legislation that also enforces employers to provide breaks at work. The Regulations says the workers over 18 are entitled to three types of protections from overworking:

✅ Rest breaks at work

✅ Daily rest breaks between shifts

✅ Weekly rest breaks

Younger workers, including anyone above school leaving age and under 18 have special protections and I'll cover those separately at the end of this article.

Rest breaks at work during shifts.

If any employee works more than six hours in a shift, then they are entitled to a rest break of 20 minute.

This rest break should be scheduled in somewhere near the middle of the shift, avoiding the beginning or the end of the shift if possible to allow the employee proper rest. The employee also has the right to take the break away from the work station and it should be an uninterrupted rest break.

The break can be described as a tea or lunch break and doesn't have to be paid at all. Many employers will choose to provide more rest periods than this to make sure that their staff are well energised throughout a shift and some offer part payment.

For example I've often seen employers offer paid rest breaks and an additional unpaid lunch break however it's up to the employer to state the terms in each employment contract.

Smoking breaks aren't usually counted as the breaks at work because they don't meet the minimum 20 minute rest break standard. But it's up to employers to either provide additional smoking breaks or simply tell staff that they have to wait until their official break to smoke.

The same applies for toilet breaks. These shouldn't be included in allocated breaks allowance, toilet breaks are short breaks and a basic need which everybody should receive. However they is no specific law about toilet breaks so employers are free to make their own rules.

Bear in mind that the legislation doesn't say that employees qualify for a 20 minute rest break every six hours. It only says the rest break is mandatory the first time they work more than six hours. So if your employee is working a 12 hour shift, they would still only legally qualify for one 20 minute break, not two two separate rest breaks - although I would definitely encourage you to provide more breaks.

Daily rest break between working days ie. how many hours between shifts is needed.

Employees are entitled to rest breaks daily as well to protect them from working shift patterns which are too taxing and make sure they get enough rest between shifts.

In most cases working days should have 11 hours gap between them. For example if an employee finished a shift at 9am, then they shouldn't start work until 8am the following day.

For employees in industries such as hospitality, retail and leisure, this can be trick to uphold all of the time so exceptions can be made. These exceptions shouldn't happen regularly and if they do, employers should make sure that the rest missed is taken later, this is known as compensatory rest breaks.

What are compensatory rest breaks and how to manage them.

As discussed above, sometimes the minimum rest break just isn't possible and so a compensatory rest break should be provided to the employer.

Situations may arise such as colleagues phoning in sick, increasing work demand or an emergency which mean that the regular breaks can't be taken.

The employer and the employee need to work together to find a suitable way which the time can be taken as adequate breaks. The compensatory rest should be equivalent to the missed break in length and should be taken as soon as possible.

If its absolutely not possible to provide the rest at a suitable time then the employer can offer other ways to protect the employee which include:

✅ A health assessment

✅ Lighter duties

✅ Extra supervision and support

Weekly rest breaks ie extended rest periods during any given week.

To stop the risk of employees working flat out for days and days on end, there are also legal break requirements made for a weekly rest period meaning that employees get time off to spend with family and friends each week.

✅ In a 7-day period, employees are entitled to a rest breaks of 24 hours

✅ In a 14-day period, employees are entitled to rest a break of at least 48 hours which they can take as one 48-hour period or two 24-hour periods.

Final thoughts

The health and safety executive and the UK Regulations say that staff breaks are a legal requirement, but in practice, uk law often doesn't go far enough in my opinion. A 12 hour working day should provide more than one work break of 20 minutes.

Staff breaks are a good thing for employers to utilise because a long uninterrupted period of complex or taxing work duties will negatively affect employees work and the business. Imagine working one shift of 12 hours in a restaurant kitchen or a retail shop floor and only having a 20 minute break, that's not sustainable for the employee or the business.

Considering that employers have the option to make breaks unpaid, it's really important to set hours with responsible rest time. I would also highly recommend documenting this in the employment contract so that both parties know where they stand.

Usually daily work breaks are well considered by the employer, I often see that its the weekly rest periods where not enough time is planned so make sure to plan your rotas carefully.