Closed petition: Require 1 month cap on notice periods for employees earning under £37,600/year

Closed on 14 February 2026

We ask the Government to help protect lower-paid workers by legislating for a cap on contractual notice periods, so that no employee earning below £37,600 can be required to give more than one month’s notice.

£37,600 is the mean average pre-tax salary in the UK. We think some employers impose excessively long notice periods (e.g. 3 months) even for minimum wage roles. We feel that this disproportionately affects workers earning below the national average salary, preventing them from moving to better-paid jobs and trapping them in low paid jobs.

Employers often cannot wait 3+ months to fill roles, meaning suitable candidates could be blocked from progressing or improving their pay.