A free, independent platform built to try to help people in the UK understand their legal rights in plain English.
How we check things: figures are checked against official sources — GOV.UK, nidirect, mygov.scot, gov.wales and the legislation itself — and we record when each was last checked. We get things wrong sometimes. When we find out, we fix it and say so. Read our Editorial & Verification Policy.
UK Work Rights was founded by Matt Thompson after repeatedly seeing people treated unfairly at work — underpaid, pushed out, or held to terms they had no idea were unlawful — without knowing what they were entitled to. The law is complicated, and proper advice costs money many people do not have. The site gives anyone in the UK free guidance on where they stand, with no account and no fee. It is a starting point, not a substitute for advice.
Matt is not a solicitor and this site does not provide legal advice. His working life has been spent in hospitality, labouring, engineering and cleaning — sectors where unpaid trial shifts, irregular shift patterns, minimum wage problems and bogus self-employment are common. That experience shaped what the site covers.
Matt and his wife are foster carers, which is why the fostering and family sections are covered to the same standard as the employment ones.
The site now covers 67 rights checkers, from zero hours contracts and maternity rights to whistleblowing and minimum wage.
It isn't only employment, either. There's housing and eviction, benefits and Universal Credit appeals, debt, consumer problems, driving and the DVLA, family and fostering, social care, and health and safety. Alongside the checkers you'll find 196 letter generators that draft the letter around your own situation, 38 in-depth guides, a free CV builder, and calculators for redundancy pay, holiday entitlement, notice pay and tax.
And none of that makes this an anti-employer site. Plenty of small employers have no HR department and no solicitor on call, and getting it wrong is expensive for everybody. So there are checkers here for employers and company directors too — legal obligations, fair work, health and safety duties, training levy exemptions — along with 36 ready-to-run toolbox talks for site managers. Knowing the rules early is cheaper than a tribunal, whichever side of the desk you're sitting on.
Because it should be. Your rights as a worker don't come with a price tag — so guidance about them shouldn't either. The site is supported by Journey by Mediavine advertising, which means you get free access and we keep the lights on. No subscriptions, no paywalls, no upsells. If you find it useful, a review goes a long way — but it's completely optional. Knowledge is the great equaliser. That's what this is about.
The site checks its own work. Every report a checker produces is compared automatically against our verified facts for that page and kept for up to 90 days, and anything that does not match is flagged for us to look at. It helps us catch mistakes, though it does not catch everything.
Your question itself is never part of that check, and the reports we keep for it carry no name or email address and are deleted after 90 days. Read more in our Editorial Policy.
UK Work Rights is free to use and independent. We are not a law firm and we do not give legal advice. We take no referral fees and have no outside investors. The site is funded by advertising and optional donations.
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UK Work Rights is completely free and always will be. If this guidance helped you, a small donation helps keep the site running and updated for everyone.
100% goes to running and maintaining this free service. No pressure — the guidance is always free.
We update our guidance whenever UK law changes. Key updates are recorded here.
Sources: GOV.UK · ACAS · legislation.gov.uk