The statement is a day-one right

Updated September 2026

People call it a contract. The statute calls it a written statement of employment particulars. You can have a job without a glossy handbook. You should not have a job without the day-one statement.

What must be in it

The statement has to name the employer and you, the start date, pay and how it is calculated, hours and days, place, holiday, notice, sick pay arrangements, and other particulars the Act lists. Some items can sit in a reasonably accessible other document if the statement points to it. Pension and disciplinary procedures are the usual examples. If the hours are variable, the statement should say so rather than invent a pattern you do not work.

From January 2027, a second document is due to arrive at the same time: a standard, government-written statement of your right to join a trade union, which your employer will have to give you alongside the particulars.

Day one since 2020

The old two-month wait for the main terms ended on 6 April 2020; pension, collective agreement, training and disciplinary details can still follow within two months. The right was also extended to workers, not only employees. That is why this page sits next to status. A casual who has been on the books for a year without particulars is not a novelty. They are a late statement. Particulars can be updated when terms change; a fire-and-rehire fight about those changes is a different page.

If you never got one

You can ask in writing and keep the email. A tribunal can award two or four weeks' pay when a particulars claim is heard with another successful claim, subject to the week's-pay cap. The missing paperwork is not, by itself, usually the whole case. It is evidence of how the employer runs the relationship, and it is a statutory failure. Do not wait for the statement before you start Acas on a dismissal or deduction that already has a clock.

What to do next

Ask for the statement and for any handbook it points to. Compare it with what you actually work. If pay or holiday on the paper is lower than the statutory floor, the floor still applies. See minimum wage and holiday pay.