Glossary
Working Time Regulations
The Working Time Regulations 1998 are the UK rules governing working hours: a 48-hour average weekly limit (voluntary opt-out possible), 11 consecutive hours of daily rest, 24 hours of weekly rest, a 20-minute break on shifts over six hours, and stronger limits for night and young workers.
For rota-builders the classic breach is the “close-then-open”: finishing at 1am and starting at 8am gives nine hours of rest against an 11-hour entitlement. The 48-hour limit is an average over 17 weeks, so occasional heavy weeks are lawful — sustained ones are not.
Because the rules bind at planning time, the practical fix is rest-gap and weekly-hours checking inside the scheduling tool, flagged before publishing rather than discovered at audit.
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