Zero Hours Contracts in Domiciliary Care: What Changes in 2026

Zero hours contracts have been the dominant employment model in domiciliary care for decades. They offer flexibility to both agencies and workers, but they also create insecurity for care workers who may not know from week to week how many hours they will work or how much they will earn. The Employment Rights Act 2025 introduces significant changes to how zero hours contracts can be used, with implementation dates in 2026 that domiciliary care agencies must prepare for.

This guide covers what is changing, how it affects domiciliary care specifically, and what you need to do.

What Is Changing

The key change is the introduction of a right for workers on zero hours contracts to request a guaranteed hours contract after a qualifying period. If a worker has been regularly working a consistent number of hours over a defined reference period, they can request a contract that reflects those actual hours.

The employer must offer a guaranteed hours contract unless there is a genuine business reason not to. The grounds for refusal are limited and must be justified. Simply preferring the flexibility of zero hours arrangements is not a valid reason for refusal.

The legislation also addresses one-sided flexibility. Employers will face restrictions on requiring workers to be available for work without a commitment to providing work. If you expect a care worker to keep their diary free for potential shifts but do not guarantee any hours, the new provisions will apply.

Why This Matters for Domiciliary Care

Domiciliary care agencies have relied on zero hours contracts because demand for care is variable. Service users start and stop packages of care. Visits are cancelled at short notice when people go into hospital or pass away. Staffing a domiciliary care agency with entirely fixed-hours contracts has traditionally been seen as too risky because revenue fluctuates.

However, the reality is that many care workers on zero hours contracts work consistent, predictable hours week after week. A care worker who has been working thirty-five hours a week for the past six months is effectively a full-time employee in everything except their contract. The new legislation recognises this gap between contractual flexibility and actual working patterns.

The Practical Impact

For most domiciliary care agencies, the practical impact will be as follows:

• Workers who consistently work regular hours will be entitled to request contracts reflecting those hours
• Agencies will need to track working patterns to identify when workers meet the qualifying criteria
• Refusals to offer guaranteed hours must be justified with a genuine business reason
• Contracts and staff handbooks will need updating to reflect the new rights
• Workforce planning will need to account for a greater proportion of guaranteed-hours staff

What You Should Do Now

Start by auditing your current workforce. Identify which workers on zero hours contracts have been working consistent hours over the past several months. These are the workers most likely to exercise their new rights, and you should plan for the financial and operational impact of converting them to guaranteed hours contracts.

Review your employment contracts. Your zero hours contract template will need updating to include information about the right to request guaranteed hours. Your staff handbook should also be updated to explain the process.

Review your scheduling and workforce planning systems. You need to be able to track individual workers' hours over time to identify when the qualifying criteria are met. If your systems do not currently track this, put processes in place now.

Consider your business model. If your agency has been staffed entirely on zero hours contracts, you may need to transition to a mixed model with some guaranteed-hours staff and some flexible workers. This is already common in agencies that have contracts with local authorities, where guaranteed hours help with recruitment and retention.

For the broader context of employment law changes affecting care agencies, see our guide to the Employment Rights Act 2025. For related guidance on statutory sick pay changes, see our article on SSP changes in April 2026.

The Recruitment and Retention Angle

There is a positive side to these changes for agencies that embrace them. Domiciliary care has chronic recruitment and retention problems, and the insecurity of zero hours contracts is consistently cited as a reason workers leave the sector. Offering guaranteed hours contracts proactively, rather than waiting for workers to request them, can be a competitive advantage in recruitment.

Workers who have guaranteed hours are more likely to stay, more likely to invest in their role, and more likely to provide consistent, high-quality care. From a CQC perspective, staff retention and consistency of care are inspected under the Well-Led and Effective key questions.

The Cost Question

Agencies are understandably concerned about the cost of guaranteeing hours. If a care package is cancelled and you have guaranteed a worker thirty hours a week, you still need to pay them. This is a real risk, but it can be managed through careful workforce planning, maintaining a mix of guaranteed and flexible contracts, building cancellation clauses into contracts with commissioners, and cross-training staff so they can be redeployed to other service users when cancellations occur.

The cost of not adapting is also significant: employment tribunal claims, difficulty recruiting, high turnover, and the reputational impact of being seen as an employer that does not treat workers fairly.