Glossary · UK
What is Statutory Notice Period?
The legal minimum notice an employer must give an employee (and vice versa) to end employment, rising with length of service from one week up to a maximum of 12 weeks under the Employment Rights Act 1996.
Full Definition
The statutory notice period is the legal minimum amount of notice an employer must give an employee before terminating their employment, set out in the Employment Rights Act 1996, and it operates as a floor beneath which a contractual notice period cannot fall (the employee always receives whichever is longer: statutory minimum or contractual notice). For an employee with between one month and two years' service, the statutory minimum is one week. After two full years of continuous service, the entitlement increases by one additional week for each further complete year of service, up to a maximum of 12 weeks after 12 or more years -- so an employee with exactly five years' service is entitled to a minimum of five weeks' notice, and one with 15 years' service is still only entitled to the capped 12 weeks. The statutory minimum notice an employee must give their employer when resigning is much shorter and does not scale with service in the same way: just one week's notice once they have been employed for one month or more, unless their contract specifies a longer period, in which case the contractual notice applies instead (an employer cannot unilaterally shorten this by insisting only the statutory week applies). During the notice period -- whether working or on garden leave -- an employee is entitled to their normal pay under the rules for calculating a "week's pay," even if there is little or no work for them to do, and continues to accrue holiday and other contractual benefits unless the contract validly provides otherwise. An employer can choose to pay in lieu of notice (PILON) rather than have the employee work their notice, provided the contract contains a PILON clause or both parties agree, in which case the payment is generally taxed as earnings in the normal way; from April 2025, however, complex Post-Employment Notice Pay rules mean that even without a PILON clause, HMRC treats the basic pay the employee would have earned during any unworked notice period as taxable earnings rather than a tax-free termination payment. Failure to give the correct statutory or contractual notice period (where no lawful reason for summary dismissal, such as gross misconduct, applies) exposes an employer to a wrongful dismissal claim for damages equivalent to the pay and benefits the employee would have received during the notice period they should have been given.