Notice periods and dismissal: what UK employers must do
Notice is the part people look up at the last minute, usually on the day they have already decided to act. It is worth knowing before then — because the length is fixed by service, and getting it wrong turns an otherwise defensible decision into a breach of contract.
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Key takeaways
- Statutory notice is one week after a month’s service, then one week per full year, capped at 12 weeks
- A contract can offer more notice than the statutory minimum but never less — the statutory floor always applies
- Gross misconduct is the one case where an employee is entitled to no notice and no pay in lieu of it
- From 1 January 2027 the unfair dismissal qualifying period falls from two years to six months, and the compensatory award becomes uncapped
Statutory notice by length of service
Statutory notice is the legal minimum an employer must give, and it is worked out purely from continuous service. It starts once someone has been employed for a month.
| Continuous service | Minimum notice from the employer |
|---|---|
| Less than one month | None required by statute |
| One month to two years | 1 week |
| Two to twelve years | 1 week per complete year |
| Twelve years or more | 12 weeks (the cap) |
Only complete years count. Someone with four years and nine months' service is entitled to four weeks, not five. The cap means twelve weeks is the most statute ever requires, however long the person has been with you.
Contractual notice and pay in lieu
Most contracts set their own notice period, and where that figure is longer than the statutory minimum, it is the one that applies. The relationship only runs one way: a contract can be more generous than statute, never less. A clause promising a week's notice to someone with eight years' service does not reduce their entitlement to eight weeks — it simply fails.
Pay in lieu of notice (PILON)
Paying the notice and ending the employment straight away needs either a PILON clause in the contract or the employee's agreement. Without one of those, ending employment early is a breach of contract even though the money has been paid — and it can undermine post-employment terms such as restrictive covenants at the same time.
Notice can also be shortened by agreement, which is common when someone has a new job to go to. Put it in writing when it happens, even if that only means an email confirming what was agreed — the record matters more than the formality.
Gross misconduct: the one exception
Where conduct is serious enough to justify dismissal for gross misconduct, there is no entitlement to notice and no payment in lieu of it. That is the only route to a lawful dismissal without notice, which is exactly why it attracts the most scrutiny.
The threshold is high, and it is about the seriousness of the conduct rather than how strongly anyone feels about it. The practical risk is rarely the decision itself — it is reaching the decision without an investigation, without putting the allegations to the person, and without a hearing they could actually respond to. A summary dismissal that skips those steps invites a claim for both unfair dismissal and wrongful dismissal, the second being the unpaid notice.
A fair reason and a fair process
A fair dismissal needs both. The reason must be one the law recognises — conduct, capability, redundancy, a statutory restriction, or some other substantial reason — and the process used to arrive at it must be reasonable. A genuine reason handled badly is still an unfair dismissal, and that is the more common failure by some distance.
For shift-based teams the evidence usually already exists somewhere: attendance patterns, no-shows, lateness, refused shifts. If it lives in a mix of memory, group chats and a paper rota, it is not evidence anyone can rely on months later. Where hours are clocked and approved, the record is contemporaneous — and the same record answers questions about working time and rest if they come up.
Absence cases deserve particular care. A trigger score is a prompt to have a conversation, not a decision in itself — our Bradford Factor guide covers where that goes wrong, and statutory sick pay has been payable from day one since April 2026.
What changes on 1 January 2027
The Employment Rights Act 2025 cuts the unfair dismissal qualifying period from two years to six months on 1 January 2027, and removes the cap on the compensatory award for ordinary unfair dismissal at the same time.
It is not a day-one right
The original Bill proposed removing the qualifying period altogether. That did not survive the Lords, and the Act settled on six months. Anyone already employed on 1 January 2027 with six months' service is protected from that date, and anyone starting on or after 1 July 2026 reaches the threshold as the change takes effect.
The practical consequence is that the informal early-service dismissal becomes a great deal riskier from 2027, and an uncapped award changes the arithmetic of getting it wrong. If your probation reviews currently happen when someone remembers, that is the habit worth fixing this year rather than next. The rest of the timetable — including the shift-notice duties that matter most if you publish a rota — is in our Employment Rights Act 2025 guide.
Once the decision is made and notice is running, the remaining question is what lands in the last payslip. Accrued but untaken holiday, notice pay and the P45 are covered in final pay when someone leaves, and RosterElf's offboarding checklist keeps the steps in one place so nothing is finished from memory.
Keep the record a fair process depends on
Clocked hours, approved timesheets, absence history and an offboarding checklist — in one place, with dates attached.
This guide summarises UK notice and dismissal rules in general terms and is not legal advice. Dismissal outcomes turn on the facts, the contract and the process followed. Check GOV.UK or Acas, or take advice, before acting in an individual case. It does not constitute legal, HR, or professional advice and should not be relied on as a substitute for advice specific to your business, workforce, or circumstances.
Notice and dismissal questions
- An employer must give at least one week once an employee has a month’s service, then one week for each complete year from two years, up to a maximum of 12 weeks. An employee with four years and nine months’ service is entitled to four weeks.
- No. A contract can be more generous, and many are, but it cannot go below the statutory minimum. Where a contract says less, the statutory figure applies instead. See our statutory notice period definition.
- Paying someone their notice and ending the employment immediately rather than having them work it. It needs a contractual right to do so, or the employee’s agreement — otherwise ending employment early is a breach of contract, even where the money is paid.
- No. Where the conduct is serious enough to justify dismissal for gross misconduct, there is no entitlement to statutory notice or to payment for it. That threshold is high, and reaching it without a proper investigation is where employers most often come unstuck.
- Normally their usual pay. Where someone is on notice and off sick, on holiday or on maternity leave, the position depends on how much notice the contract gives above the statutory minimum — a point worth checking rather than assuming.