UK Employment Rights

UK Notice Periods: The Redundancy Clock Nobody Tells You Is Ticking

You have just handed in your notice, or you are about to. Maybe your employer has told you your role is ending. Either way, the same question shows up first: how much notice actually applies here?

It is a fair question, and it catches out far more people than you would expect. Notice periods sit at the meeting point of two different rules — what the law says, and what your contract says — and the two do not always match. Get it wrong and you risk an awkward conversation with HR, a delayed start date with a new employer, or worse, a breach of contract claim. If your notice has been triggered by redundancy specifically, there’s a second clock running alongside it that almost nobody explains properly — and this guide covers both.

Use the calculator below to check your own situation, then read on for the detail — including what happens during probation, what PILON actually means, what changes if you’re being made redundant, and a change coming in 2027 that public sector and career-change professionals in particular should know about.

Notice period calculator

What a notice period actually is

A notice period is the gap between telling your employer you are leaving — or them telling you — and your actual last day. It exists to give both sides time to adjust: your employer needs to plan cover or recruit, and you need time to wrap up your work and prepare for what comes next.

There are two layers to understand. The statutory notice period is the legal floor set out in the Employment Rights Act 1996. The contractual notice period is whatever your employment contract specifies. Your contract can give you more than the statutory minimum. It can never give you less.

How much notice you owe your employer

If you are the one resigning, the rule is simple and it does not change with seniority or service length. Once you have worked somewhere for a month or more, you must give at least one week’s notice. That is the legal minimum, full stop.

In practice, almost no professional contract uses just one week. Most specify one month. Senior or specialist roles often run to two or three months, and some public sector and director-level contracts go further still. Whatever your contract says is what you are bound by, provided it is not below that one-week statutory floor.

How much notice your employer owes you

This side of the rule works differently. It scales with how long you have worked there:

So an employee with six years’ service is entitled to at least six weeks. Someone with fifteen years still only gets twelve, because that is where the statutory cap sits. Again, your contract may promise more than this table shows. It cannot promise less.

Notice during probation

Probationary notice periods are usually shorter — commonly one week each way — but this is a contractual choice, not a separate legal category. The same statutory floor applies: once you pass one month of continuous employment, neither side can go below one week. Check your offer letter or contract for the exact wording, since probation notice terms vary more than almost any other clause.

Pay in lieu of notice and garden leave

Your employer does not always need you to physically work your notice. Two common alternatives:

Payment in lieu of notice (PILON): your employment ends straight away, and you are paid a lump sum covering what you would have earned during the notice period. This is only enforceable without your agreement if your contract contains a specific PILON clause.

Garden leave: you remain employed and fully paid throughout your notice period, but you are asked to stay away from work. This is common where there are confidentiality or competition concerns, particularly in finance, law, and senior public sector roles.

Notice periods in the public sector

If you are moving from the public sector into private industry, notice periods are one of the first things worth checking properly. NHS notice periods, for example, are not set nationally — each NHS employer agrees its own terms locally, and they typically lengthen with seniority and pay band. Civil Service and local government contracts follow a similar pattern: longer notice tends to come with more senior grades.

This matters practically when you are negotiating a start date with a new employer. A private sector recruiter expecting a standard one-month notice can be caught off guard by a public sector contract requiring two or three. Knowing your exact figure before you accept an offer avoids an awkward renegotiation later.

Redundancy notice: what makes it different

If your notice has been triggered by redundancy, the statutory notice table above still applies to you in exactly the same way — one week per complete year of service, capped at 12 weeks, or whatever longer period your contract sets. Redundancy does not create a separate notice regime. What it does create is confusion, because two entirely different payments start running at the same time and people assume they’re the same thing.

Notice pay is what you’re owed for your notice period — the same as it would be if you’d resigned or been dismissed for any other reason. Redundancy pay is a separate, additional payment tied specifically to the redundancy itself, based on your age, length of service, and weekly pay. You are entitled to both, and one is not deducted from the other.

Your notice period also runs alongside — not instead of — your employer’s consultation obligations. If 20 or more employees are being made redundant at the same establishment, your employer must collectively consult for a minimum period before any dismissals take effect. Your individual notice period is separate from, and does not shorten, that consultation requirement.

If you’re in the first days of this, our guide on exactly what to do before Monday covers the practical first steps. If you want the fuller picture of what to expect over the weeks that follow, what to do next after redundancy in 2026 walks through it end to end.

Paid time off to job hunt during your redundancy notice

This is the part almost nobody tells you about. Under the Employment Rights Act 1996, if you’ve been continuously employed for two years or more and you’re working your redundancy notice, you have a statutory right to reasonable paid time off during working hours to look for new work or arrange training.

“Reasonable” has a legal cap: your employer only has to pay you for up to 40% of one week’s pay across your whole notice period — in practice, roughly two days’ pay if you work a standard five-day week, however you choose to spread the time. You can take it in a single block or spread it across several shorter appointments; your employer cannot force you to make the hours up elsewhere.

This right only applies once you’ve hit the two-year service mark and only during a redundancy notice period specifically — it doesn’t apply if you’ve resigned or been dismissed for another reason.

How redundancy notice interacts with your redundancy pay

Statutory redundancy pay is calculated separately from notice pay, using your age, length of service (capped at 20 years), and weekly pay (capped at a government-set limit that rises most years). For redundancies taking effect on or after 6 April 2026, that weekly pay cap is £751 in England, Scotland and Wales, making the maximum possible statutory redundancy payment £22,530. If your redundancy takes effect before that date, the previous, lower cap applies instead — so it’s worth checking which cap applies to your actual leaving date, not just the date you were told.

Redundancy pay is generally tax-free up to a combined £30,000; notice pay itself is taxed as normal earnings, whether you work it or receive it as a lump sum through PILON. You have six months from your last working day to make a claim if you believe you’ve been underpaid.

Figures correct as of publication and based on GOV.UK guidance current at the time of writing. The weekly pay cap is reviewed and typically increases every April — check GOV.UK for the figure that applies to your specific leaving date before relying on any number here.

What happens if you do not work your notice

Leaving without giving proper notice is a breach of contract. Your employer could, in theory, withhold final pay to the extent permitted by your contract, or pursue a claim for losses such as the cost of urgent temporary cover. In reality, most employers will simply try to agree a shorter handover rather than escalate — but you have no automatic right to leave early without agreement, so it is always worth asking rather than assuming.

Frequently asked questions

Ready to write the letter?

Once you know your notice period, the next step is putting it in writing properly. Our companion guide, How to Write a Resignation Letter (UK Guide), walks through exactly what to include — and our free builder tool drafts the first version for you in under a minute.

Related reading: Career Change UK 2026 — 8-Step Guide · Surviving Redundancy UK · How to Write a Resignation Letter (UK Guide) · Made Redundant in the UK: What to Do Next

This article is general guidance, not formal legal advice, and figures are correct at the time of publishing. Employment contracts and personal circumstances vary, so your situation may be different from the examples above — get advice specific to your own circumstances, and if your situation is contested or unusual, speak to an employment solicitor or Acas.

Facing redundancy? Related guides:

• Your First Two Weeks After Redundancy
• Redundancy and the Yorkshire Job Market
• Surviving Redundancy UK — Full Guide (£9.99 PDF)