UK employment contract requirements start with a document the law calls the written statement of employment particulars, and under the Employment Rights Act 1996 most employees and workers must receive it on or before their first day. That statement has to set out the core terms of the job: who the parties are, the start date, pay and how often it is paid, hours, holiday, place of work, job title and notice periods, among others. On top of the written statement, an employment contract cannot pay below the National Minimum Wage, cannot cut statutory holiday below 5.6 weeks, and cannot contract out of core statutory rights. This guide explains what a compliant England and Wales employment contract needs to include in 2026, and how you can draft one from vetted clauses in 99 Data Rooms. It is general information, not legal advice.
Whether you are a founder making a first hire, a small business standardising your paperwork, or an HR lead tidying up inherited templates, the same question comes up: what does the law actually make me put in writing, and what is just good practice? The two overlap, but they are not the same, and getting the mandatory parts right is the floor you build everything else on.
The day-one written statement: what the law requires
The single most important legal obligation is the written statement of employment particulars. Since April 2020 this must be given to employees and to most workers on or before the first day of work, not within two months as under the older rule. The Employment Rights Act 1996, section 1, lists what the principal statement must contain, and gov.uk restates it in plain terms (see Sources). The mandatory items include the names of employer and employee, the start date and, where continuous employment counts, the date it began, the rate and frequency of pay, hours of work including any variable or night working, holiday entitlement and pay, the place of work, and the job title or a brief description of the role.
A second tier of particulars, such as pension arrangements, collective agreements, and details of any probationary period, must also be provided, some in the principal statement and some allowed slightly later. The practical takeaway is simple: a handshake and a start date are not enough. If you take someone on and never hand them a written statement, you are already in breach of a statutory duty, and an employee can bring a claim for it at a tribunal, usually alongside another complaint.
A written statement is not quite the same thing as a full employment contract. The statement is the minimum the law forces you to record; a contract is the wider agreement, often adding clauses on confidentiality, intellectual property, restrictive covenants and grievance procedures. In practice a well-drafted employment contract contains the statutory particulars and the extra commercial terms in one document, which is the sensible approach for most employers. If your working relationship is genuinely casual, a different structure may fit, and our guide to zero-hours contracts and what is legal covers that case.
Pay, hours and holiday: the statutory floors you cannot go below
Some terms are negotiable; others are floors set by statute that a contract cannot undercut, no matter what both sides sign. Three matter most.
First, the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage. Every worker above school leaving age is entitled to at least the relevant statutory rate, which gov.uk publishes and updates each April by age band (see Sources). A contract that purports to pay less is simply unenforceable on that point; the statutory rate applies regardless. This catches out employers who try to treat interns or trainees as unpaid, when in reality anyone who counts as a worker is usually owed at least the minimum wage.
Second, statutory holiday. Almost all workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid annual leave, which is 28 days for someone working five days a week, and an employer can choose whether bank holidays fall inside or outside that allowance. This comes from the Working Time Regulations 1998 and is summarised on gov.uk (see Sources). A contract can offer more, but it cannot offer less, and it cannot pay leave in lieu of the statutory minimum except on termination.
Third, working time and rest. The Working Time Regulations also set limits on average weekly hours and entitlements to rest breaks. A contract should state the normal hours and address whether the individual has agreed to opt out of the 48-hour average weekly limit, which is voluntary and cannot be forced.
Because these floors are statutory, your contract does not create them, it simply has to respect them. Drafting from a vetted template helps here, because the clauses are written to sit above the legal minimum rather than accidentally below it.
Contract terms that protect the business
Beyond the statutory particulars, most employers want terms that protect the business, and this is where a bare written statement is not enough. Confidentiality clauses keep commercial information from walking out the door. Intellectual property clauses confirm that work created in the course of employment belongs to the employer, which for many roles is the whole point, and dovetails with a standalone IP assignment where you need extra certainty. Restrictive covenants, such as non-compete and non-solicitation clauses, aim to limit what a departing employee can do next, though English courts only enforce them so far as they are reasonable and no wider than necessary to protect a legitimate interest.
For senior hires and directors, the picture widens again. A director who is also an employee sits under company law duties as well as employment terms, and if you are appointing someone to the board you should read our guide to the non-executive director agreement, which covers the appointment side that a normal employment contract does not. Before the contract itself, many employers issue an offer letter, and our guide on sharing offer letters securely walks through getting that first document to a candidate without it leaking.
How 99 Data Rooms handles employment contracts
Drafting an employment contract from scratch, or worse from a random download of unknown vintage, is where mistakes creep in. The AI Legal Drafting feature in 99 Data Rooms is built for exactly this. The important thing to understand is what it does not do: it does not write legal wording from scratch and it does not let a language model invent clauses. It assembles a document from a library of vetted England and Wales clauses, choosing the right ones based on your answers. Vetted clauses, assembled, not AI-written law. You can browse the full Legal Drafting template library on our site, where the employment agreement sits alongside 16 other England and Wales templates.
In practice you either open the employment agreement template from the library or describe what you need in plain words, then answer a few questions: the role, salary, hours, notice period, holiday and start date. The drafter fills the blanks with the matching vetted clauses and saves a draft you keep even on the free tier. Because it is a starting point rather than finished advice, anything with real risk attached, senior hires, unusual covenants, equity, is worth a solicitor's eye before you rely on it.
From there the document flows into the rest of the platform. You share the contract as a tracked, revocable link rather than an email attachment, gate it behind a verified email and one-time code so only the intended candidate opens it, and watch page-by-page analytics tell you whether they read it. When both sides are ready, the contract goes to e-signature in the browser and comes back as an executed PDF with an audit certificate recording who signed, when, their IP and intent, plus a SHA-256 fingerprint. Drafted, gated, tracked, signed, revocable, in one place. The wider platform is in beta and improving fast, but that loop already works.
Draft your employment contract for free
You can draft an England and Wales employment contract from vetted clauses, keep the draft, and share or sign it inside 99 Data Rooms. The free tier is a real tier, not a trial: three rooms, twenty-five active links, forever, no card required. Start for free, assemble the contract you need, and move up only when you want unlimited links, NDA gating or watermarking. The platform is in beta and improving fast, but the path from "I need to hire someone" to "the contract is signed" already runs in one place.
Sources
- Written statement of employment particulars (day-one right): Employment Rights Act 1996, s.1, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1996/18/section/1 ; gov.uk guidance, https://www.gov.uk/employment-contracts-and-conditions/written-statement-of-employment-particulars
- National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates: gov.uk, https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates ; employment rights for interns, https://www.gov.uk/employment-rights-for-interns
- Statutory holiday entitlement of 5.6 weeks: gov.uk, https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights ; Working Time Regulations 1998, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/1833
When must an employee receive their written statement?
On or before their first day of work. Since April 2020 the written statement of employment particulars is a day-one right under the Employment Rights Act 1996, not something you can defer for two months. It applies to employees and to most workers (see Sources). This is general information, not legal advice.
Is a written statement the same as an employment contract?
Not quite. The written statement is the minimum set of particulars the law forces you to record. An employment contract is the wider agreement, usually including the statutory particulars plus commercial terms like confidentiality and IP. In practice a good contract contains both, which is what our employment agreement template produces.
Can an employment contract pay less than the minimum wage?
No. The National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage are statutory floors that apply regardless of what the contract says. A term paying below the relevant rate is unenforceable on that point, and the worker is still owed the statutory amount (see Sources).
How much holiday must a UK employment contract give?
At least 5.6 weeks of paid annual leave for almost all workers, which is 28 days for a five-day week, under the Working Time Regulations 1998. A contract can offer more but not less, and cannot pay off the statutory minimum except on termination (see Sources).
What if the worker is casual rather than a fixed employee?
Casual and variable arrangements can use a different structure, but the person may still be a worker with minimum wage and holiday rights. Our guide to zero-hours contracts explains what is and is not legal, and where the consultancy route and IR35 fit instead.