The Employment Rights Act 2025 for cleaning companies: the dates
Royal Assent was 18 December 2025. The changes land in stages through 2026 and 2027, and the ones that hit hardest are the ones about zero-hours rotas, which is how most cleaning companies run. This is a dated timeline with the sources, not legal advice.
- Not legal advice
- Dated timeline
- Sources from law firms, read 12 September 2026
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What does the Employment Rights Act 2025 change for cleaning companies?
From 1 January 2027 staff can claim unfair dismissal after six months, and during 2027 zero-hours and low-hours workers gain the right to a guaranteed-hours offer and to payment for short-notice shift cancellations, which changes the economics of a cleaning rota.
Cleaning is the sector these rules were written about. The British Cleaning Council's 2026 report says 83% of businesses have fewer than ten staff and that recruitment is the industry's biggest problem; most of those staff are on variable hours. The timeline below is drawn from the law firms' published guidance (Lewis Silkin, Pinsent Masons, Hill Dickinson), ICAEW and legislation.gov.uk, all read on 12 September 2026. Dates for 2027 depend on regulations not yet made and may move. Check with an employment adviser before changing a contract.
Last checked 12 September 2026. Every figure below is sourced and dated, and we re-check them quarterly.
The timeline
| Date | Change | What it means on a cleaning rota |
|---|---|---|
| 7 April 2026 | Fair Work Agency begins operating | One enforcement body for minimum wage, holiday pay and statutory sick pay. Cleaning is a known focus. |
| 1 October 2026 | Employment tribunal time limits extend from three months to six | Longer exposure to claims from staff who have left. |
| 30 October 2026 | Duty to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment; trade union access rights | Operatives work alone on client sites. A written policy and evidence you enforce it are the defence. |
| 1 January 2027 | Unfair dismissal qualifying period drops from two years to six months | Applies to dismissals on or after that date, so staff engaged from about July 2026 are covered. Most cleaning firms have never needed a proper dismissal process. They will. |
| 2027 (Lewis Silkin, 4 September 2026, says January; exact date set by regulations) | Right to reasonable notice of shifts and to payment for shifts cancelled or cut at short notice | A client cancelling a Friday office clean at 4pm on Thursday becomes a cost you carry. Contracts with clients need a matching clause. |
| 2027 (date to be set by regulations) | Right to a guaranteed-hours offer after a twelve-week reference period, including for agency workers | A cleaner who has done twenty hours a week on a regular round for twelve weeks must be offered a contract for those hours. Zero-hours as the default model ends. |
What a cleaning company website has to do about it
Nothing legal. Everything practical. The recruitment page should say what hours are guaranteed, what the rate is and how shifts are notified, because from 2027 that is what a good candidate will ask and a bad employer will hide. The commercial pages should say how you handle client cancellations, because the buyer's contract will need to match yours. And the policies a tender asks for (harassment, safeguarding, TUPE) should be on the accreditations page where a buyer can find them.
What this guide is not
Legal advice. We build websites. The sources below are where the dates come from; an employment adviser is where the contract changes should come from.
Sources and method
Search volumes and cost-per-click figures are Google Ads UK data pulled through DataForSEO on the date shown. Business counts are claimed Google listings in six cleaning categories within a five kilometre radius of the town centre. Prices are read from the supplier's own page on the date shown. Where a figure cannot be sourced, it is not published.
- Employment Rights Act 2025, Royal Assent 18 December 2025; legislation.gov.uk
- Lewis Silkin, Employment Rights Act implementation timetable (4 September 2026)
- Pinsent Masons, Employment Rights Act roadmap (late August 2026); Hill Dickinson (29 July 2026); ICAEW timeline
- Fair Work Agency launch, 7 April 2026 (GOV.UK)
- British Cleaning Council, Research Report 2026 (18 February 2026)
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