A day-one right to ask, and a decision owed within two months. See what the change you want would really cost — usually much less than the headline.
What you would stop paying on the days you no longer work. Assumes you pay year-round — scale it down if your setting is term-time only.
Contributions are a percentage of pay, so they fall with your hours. Your employer’s contribution normally falls too — worth factoring into a long-term decision.
| Gross | Tax | NI | Take-home |
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Every employee has had a day-one right to request flexible working since 6 April 2024. You can make two requests in any 12 months, your employer must consult you before refusing, and they must decide within two months including any appeal. You no longer have to explain what effect the change would have on the business — that requirement was scrapped.
Flexible working means a change to when, where or how you work: part-time hours, compressed hours, flexitime, staggered start times, home or hybrid working, job shares, annualised or term-time hours. Several of those involve no reduction in pay at all, and they are also the hardest to refuse, because most of the eight business grounds are about capacity rather than location or timing.
This is the distinction that catches people out. An employer may still refuse, provided they rely on one of eight statutory business grounds: extra costs, a detrimental effect on meeting customer demand, an inability to reorganise work among existing staff, an inability to recruit, a detrimental impact on quality, a detrimental impact on performance, insufficient work in the periods you propose, or planned structural changes.
At present they only need to genuinely hold one of those grounds — it does not yet have to be a reasonable one. That changes in 2027, when the Employment Rights Act 2025 will require refusals to be reasonable and require the employer to say in writing why the ground they relied on makes refusal reasonable. The eight grounds themselves stay. It is not in force yet, so a request made today is judged under the current, weaker test.
Two practical points if you are refused. The remedy for a flexible working breach is capped at eight weeks’ pay, which is a few thousand pounds at most. But a refusal that disproportionately disadvantages you because of a protected characteristic — classically one that hits women with childcare responsibilities — can be indirect discrimination, where compensation is not capped at all. Those are much more serious claims and worth proper advice.
The money is where this page earns its keep, because most people estimate it wrongly and talk themselves out of asking. Two things make the real cost much lower than the headline salary cut.
First, the pay you give up is taxed at your highest marginal rate. You were never keeping all of it. Giving up £1 of gross costs about 72p at basic rate and roughly 58p at higher rate. Second, if you pay for childcare on working days, you stop paying it on the days you no longer work — a saving that for a parent of a pre-school child can cancel out most of the pay cut.
The extreme case is the £100,000 to £125,140 band, where the Personal Allowance is withdrawn at £1 for every £2 earned and the effective marginal rate is around 60%. Someone on £120,000 dropping to four days gives up £24,000 of gross but only about £9,900 of take-home — roughly 41p in the pound. If you assumed a four-day week was unaffordable, that is worth checking before you accept it. A similar effect runs from £60,000 to £80,000 for anyone claiming Child Benefit, because of the High Income Child Benefit Charge.
An agreed flexible working change is a permanent variation of your contract unless you both agree otherwise. You cannot simply revert if it does not work, and asking to go back is itself a fresh request against your allowance of two a year.
Proposing a three or six month trial solves that from both sides. It makes a yes far easier for an employer to give, because they are agreeing to an experiment rather than a permanent change, and it leaves you a route back. It is also worth putting the business case in the request even though you are no longer obliged to — a proposal that has already answered the obvious objections is materially harder to refuse. Acas publishes a Code of Practice on the process and advises free of charge.
Every employee, from their first day. The old requirement for 26 weeks’ service was removed on 6 April 2024, so there is no qualifying period at all. You do not need a reason, you do not need caring responsibilities, and you do not have to say why you want it.
It is an employee right, so agency workers, contractors and the self-employed are outside the statutory scheme — though nothing stops you asking informally.
Two in any 12-month period, up from one before April 2024. That matters more than it sounds: if the first is refused you can come back with a different proposal — often a narrower one — without waiting a year.
A common and effective approach is to ask for what you actually want first, and keep the second request in reserve as a fallback that answers whichever business ground they relied on.
Two months from the date of your request, and that includes any appeal. It was three months before April 2024. The two of you can agree to extend it, but the employer cannot simply take longer.
They also have to consult you before refusing — that became a legal obligation in 2024. A refusal with no meeting and no discussion is a procedural failure in itself.
Not for any reason they like, but the bar is currently low. A refusal must rest on one of eight statutory business grounds:
This is the crucial limitation: it is a right to request, not a right to have. At present the employer only has to genuinely hold one of those grounds — it does not yet have to be a reasonable one. That is what changes in 2027.
No, not since April 2024. You used to have to set out what effect the change would have on your employer and how it might be dealt with. That requirement was scrapped.
Having said that, doing it anyway is the single thing most likely to get a yes. An employer refusing has to name a business ground; a request that has already answered the obvious ones — who covers your Friday, how handovers work, what happens at peak times — is materially harder to turn down.
Any change to when, where or how you work. That includes part-time hours, compressed hours (the same hours in fewer days), flexitime, staggered start and finish times, home or hybrid working, job sharing, annualised hours and term-time working.
It is worth noticing that several of these — compressed hours, home working, a shifted start time — involve no reduction in pay at all. They are also the hardest kinds to refuse, because most of the eight business grounds are about capacity rather than location or timing.
Yes, by default. An agreed flexible working request is a permanent variation of your employment contract unless you and your employer expressly agree otherwise. You cannot simply revert to your old hours later if it does not suit, and a request to go back is itself a new flexible working request.
This is why asking for a trial period is often the smartest move. Proposing three or six months makes a yes far easier for an employer to give, since they are agreeing to an experiment rather than a permanent change — and it leaves you a route back if the new pattern does not work.
Much less than the headline salary cut, for two reasons that the calculator above works through.
First, the pay you give up is the pay taxed at your highest marginal rate. Giving up £1 of gross costs you about 72p at basic rate and around 58p at higher rate — you were never keeping the whole pound.
Second, if you pay for childcare on the days you work, you stop paying it on the days you do not. For a parent of a pre-school child that saving can wipe out most of the pay cut, and it is a calculation remarkably few people do before deciding they cannot afford to ask.
Dramatically, yes. Between £100,000 and £125,140 your Personal Allowance is withdrawn at £1 for every £2 you earn, producing an effective marginal rate of around 60%. Pay in that band is the most heavily taxed money you will ever earn.
Which means dropping hours there is unusually cheap. Someone on £120,000 giving up a day a week loses £24,000 of gross pay but only around £9,900 of take-home — roughly 41p in the pound. If you have assumed a four-day week is unaffordable, it is worth running your own numbers before accepting that.
A similar effect applies between £60,000 and £80,000 if you claim Child Benefit, because the High Income Child Benefit Charge claws it back across that band. How much depends on how many children you claim for — the Child Benefit calculator works that out.
You can complain to an employment tribunal if your employer did not handle the request in a reasonable manner, refused on a ground outside the eight, based the decision on incorrect facts, or failed to decide within two months. Start with a written appeal and the grievance procedure, and take free advice from Acas.
One thing worth knowing: the remedy for a flexible working breach is capped at eight weeks’ pay, and a “week’s pay” is itself capped, so the maximum is a few thousand pounds. But if the refusal disadvantages you because of a protected characteristic — most commonly a refusal that disproportionately affects women with childcare responsibilities — that can amount to indirect discrimination, where compensation is not capped at all. Those claims are considerably more serious, and worth taking proper advice on rather than relying on the flexible working route alone.
Yes, in 2027. The Employment Rights Act 2025 will require a refusal to be reasonable, not merely to cite one of the eight grounds, and will require the employer to state in writing why the refusal is reasonable on the ground they rely on. The eight grounds themselves stay as they are.
That is a meaningful shift: at present an employer who genuinely holds one of the grounds is largely unchallengeable, whereas a reasonableness test invites a tribunal to look at whether the conclusion actually followed. It is not in force yet and the commencement date is still to be confirmed, so the current rules are what apply to a request made today.
All free and independent:
If the reason you want flexible hours is caring, it is worth knowing that carer’s leave, unpaid parental leave and time off for dependants are separate rights that sit alongside a flexible working arrangement rather than instead of one.
If the reason you want fewer hours is caring, there are separate rights that sit alongside a flexible arrangement rather than instead of one.
