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A record 1.23 million UK workers are now on zero-hour contracts as their main employment, new research reveals.
Analysis of Office of National Statistics data by the Work Foundation at Lancaster University showed that the number of zero-hours contracts increased by 91,000 over a year, driven by young workers aged 16-24 and workers not in full-time education.
It also found that 181,000 more people are on zero-hour contracts than when the Labour government was elected in July 2024.
The Employment Rights Act will ban “exploitative” zero-hour contracts from 2027. Consultation on key rights, including a right to guaranteed hours, advance notice of shifts, and financial compensation for late shift cancellations, is expected to start soon.
The report said despite zero-hour contracts previously being described as the solution to flexibility around education or childcare, its analysis shows 943,000 zero-hour contract workers are not in full-time education.
The data also found that young workers aged 16-24 are 5.1 times more likely to be on the contracts, women are 1.2 times more likely and a third of zero-hour contract workers depend on them for full-time work.
Ben Harrison, director of the Work Foundation at Lancaster University, said:
“This new data indicates that some employers continue to rely on highly precarious forms of employment such as zero-hour contracts, despite the government’s commitment to kerb their use. Such arrangements underpin the kind of ‘one-sided flexibility’ that leaves over a million workers unsure how many hours they will work or how much money they will earn next week.
“Now the Employment Rights Act has passed, it is imperative that legislators prioritise finalising the new regulations that will provide workers with a new right to guarantee hours.
“Our previous research indicates that nine in ten zero-hour contract workers in 2023 would have qualified to be offered guaranteed hours under the government’s original proposal of a 12 week reference period. This would represent an important step towards providing more security and certainty for workers currently on these kinds of insecure contracts.”
