Employment contract checklist: what to check before signing

A job offer is exciting. The employment contract behind it is a legal document you’ll likely live with for years, and the first time most people read theirs properly is the evening before they have to sign. This checklist walks through what actually matters in a job contract, what to question, and where you still have room to push back.

Key takeaways

• Read the contract twice: once for what it says, once for what it doesn’t.
• Restrictive covenants in UK contracts are only enforceable if they’re reasonable in scope, geography, and duration.
• Full-time workers in the UK are entitled to a statutory minimum of 28 days’ paid annual leave per year, which can include the 8 bank holidays.
• Watch for vague phrases like ‘sole discretion’, ‘from time to time’, and broad IP assignment clauses.
• Your strongest position to negotiate is between the offer letter and the signed contract. It drops sharply after you start.
• If anything in the contract contradicts what was agreed in the interview, get the change in writing before you sign.

[internal link: see our guide on negotiating a job offer → salary negotiation tactics]

How much time do you actually have to review it?

Most UK employers will give you between 3 and 7 working days to sign. Some will pretend the deadline is shorter than it is. It rarely is.

Ask politely for more time if you need it. A reasonable employer will agree to a few extra days for legal review. If they won’t, that itself is a piece of information about how they handle reasonable requests, and you’d be wise to factor it in.

For senior roles, equity-heavy offers, or anything where the wording feels unfamiliar (US-style ‘ at will’ clauses, complex bonus formulas, restrictive covenants), having an employment solicitor read it costs less than you’d think. A 30-minute review with a specialist often runs £150 to £300 in the UK. Compared to the cost of a contract going wrong later, that’s a small spend.

Job title and scope of responsibilities

Past the title, focus on the duties. They’re where most disputes start.

If the job description ends with a phrase like ‘and any other duties as required by the company’, take that seriously. In practice, that line can absorb anything. It doesn’t make the contract unfair on its own, but it removes any defence you might have later when the role drifts.

Keep every email, recruiter message, and offer letter. In England and Wales, pre-contractual statements can sometimes be treated as part of the agreement under misrepresentation principles, particularly if you relied on them when accepting. Save the lot in one folder before your start date.

[internal link: how to write your own job description for clarity → job description templates]

Pay, benefits, and the parts that aren’t salary

Check the basic salary, then check everything else.

Bonus and commission structures are where most contracts get vague. Look for who decides whether targets have been met, whether bonuses are described as ‘discretionary’ (in most UK cases, that means the company can reduce them to zero without breach), and what happens if you leave partway through a bonus year. If your offer includes a sign-on bonus, find the clawback clause. Most have one, and most ask for the full amount back if you leave within 12 to 24 months.

Then the non-salary items: pension contributions, private medical, life cover, season ticket loans, professional subscription reimbursement, and any ‘flex pot’ that lets you trade benefits. Under UK auto-enrolment rules ([external link: gov.uk workplace pensions → workplace pensions]), employers must contribute a minimum of 3% of qualifying earnings, with the employee contributing at least 5%. Some employers go well above this. Ask.

For tech and start-up roles, equity often matters more than the cash salary. Read the next section on vesting before you treat a share package as part of your compensation.

Working hours, location, and the right to disconnect

Hybrid arrangements are now part of most UK office contracts, and Office for National Statistics data shows the share of UK workers spending at least some of their week at home has stabilised well above pre-pandemic levels. The wording, though, varies wildly.

Some contracts specify ‘a minimum of 2 days a week in our London office’. Others say ‘as required by your manager’. The second is much weaker protection if you’ve taken the job partly because it was advertised as remote-friendly.

If you’ve agreed on something specific in an interview, get it in the contract. A side letter or addendum works if the main contract template can’t be changed.

A few overtime points worth checking:

• Whether your hours include an opt-out from the 48-hour weekly limit under the [external link: Working Time Regulations 1998 → working time regulations]. Many UK contracts include a default opt-out clause. You can withdraw it, but it’s easier to do so at the offer stage.
• Whether overtime is paid, taken as time off in lieu, or simply unpaid.
• Whether weekend or evening work is expected, and on what notice.

The ‘right to disconnect’ has become law in France (since January 2017), Ireland (Code of Practice, 2021), and Australia (in force from August 2024). The UK has no statutory right yet, though the current government has signalled interest in the area. If you’re moving between jurisdictions, check what applies to you.

Leave entitlements and parental leave.

Full-time UK workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid annual leave per year. That works out to 28 days for someone working 5 days a week, and the 8 bank holidays can be counted within that total. Many employers offer more. They don’t have to.

Check the contract for:

• Whether bank holidays are on top of your annual allowance or included in it
• When the holiday year runs (calendar year, financial year, or your start date anniversary)
• Whether unused leave rolls over, and if so, how much
• Sick pay terms beyond the statutory minimum, and how long company sick pay lasts
• Parental leave provisions, including enhanced maternity, paternity, shared parental, and adoption pay

Statutory maternity leave in the UK is up to 52 weeks. Statutory maternity pay covers 39 of those weeks. Many large employers offer enhanced packages, which can run to 6 months on full pay or more. CIPD research on parental leave benefits has consistently shown wide variation across UK employers, and the gap between statutory and enhanced is often the single biggest variable in two otherwise similar offers. People often miss it because they’re not planning to have a baby yet.

[internal link: enhanced maternity pay by sector → UK parental leave benchmarks]

Restrictive covenants and what’s actually enforceable

Restrictive covenants are the clauses that limit what you can do after you leave the company. The common ones:

• Non-compete: prevents you from joining a competitor or starting a competing business for a defined period
• Non-solicitation: stops you from approaching the employer’s clients
• Non-dealing: stops you from doing business with those clients even if they approach you first
• Non-poaching: prevents you from hiring colleagues away from the company

Under English law, these are only enforceable to the extent they’re reasonable. Courts look at duration, geographic scope, and the legitimate business interest the employer is protecting. A 6-month non-compete for a sales director with deep client relationships is often defensible. A 24-month non-compete for a junior marketing executive usually is not.

In May 2023, the UK government announced plans to cap statutory non-compete periods at 3 months. That proposal hasn’t been legislated yet. In the meantime, anything over 12 months for a non-managerial role deserves a hard question.

In the United States, the picture has been moving fast. The Federal Trade Commission voted in April 2024 to ban most non-competes nationwide, but a federal court in Texas blocked the rule in August 2024. The outcome on appeal will shape US contracts for years. If you’re signing a US contract right now, the non-compete in it may or may not be enforceable depending on your state and the timing of any final ruling.

Notice, termination, and garden leave

Two things to find in the termination clause: how much notice each side has to give, and on what grounds the contract can be ended early.

Under the [external link: Employment Rights Act 1996 → statutory notice periods], statutory notice after one month of continuous service is one week. After two years, it rises by one week per completed year, capped at 12 weeks. Most professional contracts go above this, often to 1 or 3 months reciprocal, sometimes 6 months for senior roles.

Watch for asymmetry. If the company can end your contract on 1 week’s notice but expects 3 months from you, that’s worth questioning. It’s negotiable in most cases.

Garden leave clauses let the employer keep paying you during your notice period while requiring you to stay away from work and competitors. They’re useful for the employer and frustrating for you, particularly if you want to start a new role quickly. Check the maximum garden leave period and whether it counts against any non-compete that follows.

Moonlighting, IP, and the new AI clauses

If you do any paid work outside your main job (freelance writing, consulting, evening teaching), the contract probably has something to say about it.

Most UK contracts require you to disclose outside work, and some prohibit it outright if it could compete with the employer or affect your performance. If you’ve got existing side projects, list them in writing as exclusions when you sign. Trying to ringfence them after the fact is much harder.

An intellectual property assignment is the part of the contract most people skim. The standard wording assigns everything you create ‘in the course of your employment’ to the company. Broader versions try to assign anything you create during the employment period at all, including evenings and weekends. The broader version is often unenforceable in practice under UK law for unrelated personal projects, but it can still cause an argument. Push back if the wording is too wide.

Since 2023, more contracts include AI-specific clauses. These usually cover whether you can use generative AI tools at work, what employer data you can put into them, and who owns outputs created with AI assistance. If your role involves writing, coding, or design, read these carefully. Vague restrictions on ‘unauthorised AI use’ can be applied selectively later.

Equity, vesting, and cliffs (if you’re getting shares)

For tech, biotech, and start-up roles, the equity grant often matters more than the cash salary. Read the share option agreement separately from the main employment contract. They’re usually different documents, and the share scheme will reference its own rules.

Things to check:

• The vesting schedule (4-year vesting with a 1-year cliff is the standard for venture-backed companies)
• What happens to unvested shares if you leave (almost always: you lose them)
• What happens to vested options if you leave (you may have only 90 days to exercise them, which can mean a real cash outlay)
• Good leaver and bad leaver definitions, which can shift everything
• Acceleration provisions on acquisition or IPO

In the UK, [external link: HMRC EMI schemes → enterprise management incentives] offer significant tax advantages for qualifying companies. If your offer is in EMI options, confirm the company still qualifies, and the strike price has been formally agreed with HMRC.

Tax status, IR35, and contractor traps

If you’re being hired as a contractor through a personal service company rather than as an employee, IR35 is the rule that decides whether HMRC will treat you as an employee anyway for tax purposes.

Since April 2021, in the private sector for medium and large clients, the engaging company decides your IR35 status. They issue a Status Determination Statement. Ask for it, read it, and if you disagree, dispute it in writing through the company’s process.

Getting IR35 wrong costs real money. Inside-IR35 contractors pay roughly the same tax as employees, but without the employment rights. If you’re moving from permanent employment to contracting, factor this in before you celebrate the headline day rate.

[internal link: contractor vs permanent comparison → IR35 self-assessment tool]

What happens if the company is sold

Most UK employment contracts transfer automatically to a new owner under [external link: TUPE regulations 2006 → TUPE explained on gov.uk]. Your terms stay the same. In theory, you carry on as before.

In practice, mergers and acquisitions trigger restructures, and restructures trigger redundancies. If your industry is consolidating or your prospective employer has been the subject of acquisition talk, look at the change-of-control provisions in any equity grant. Some accelerate vesting on a sale. Many don’t, and that can leave you sitting on shares that vanish if you’re made redundant after the deal closes.

Red flags to question before you sign

Some specific wording deserves a question every time it appears.

• ‘At the company’s sole discretion’ is attached to anything that affects your pay, leave, or duties.
• ‘From time to time’ is used to describe how often your duties or location might change.
• ‘As the company sees fit’ applied to overtime, location, or hours
• Bonus described as ‘discretionary’ with no objective performance criteria
• Non-compete clauses over 12 months for non-senior roles
• IP assignment that covers work created ‘ at any time during the employment’, without a carve-out for unrelated personal work
• Termination clauses where the company’s notice period to you is shorter than yours to them
• Probation periods that allow termination with no notice, and during which benefits are withheld
• References to handbooks, policies, or schedules that ‘may be amended from time to time’ without consultation

None of these is necessarily deal-breakers on its own. All of them deserve a clarifying email or a sentence amended.

Where you actually have room to negotiate

You have the most room to negotiate in a narrow window. It opens when you receive a written offer and closes the day you sign.

Once you’ve signed, your bargaining position drops to almost nothing until your next promotion or external offer. So the offer stage is the time to push, politely, on the things that matter to you: notice period, equity, signing bonus, leave allowance, parental leave top-ups, working pattern, and any restrictive covenant you find unreasonable.

Recruiters will tell you, ‘the contract is standard’. It usually is. Most of those standard contracts still get amended on request. In my experience, requests phrased as practical and specific (‘I’d like to keep my existing consulting work for two named clients, neither of whom competes with you’) get accepted far more often than vague ones (‘I’m not sure about the IP clause’).

If the company refuses to move on anything at all, that’s information too. A reasonable employer will negotiate at least one thing.

Frequently asked questions

Is an employment contract legally binding before I sign it?

In England and Wales, you can be bound by an offer you’ve accepted in writing or verbally, even without a signed contract, if both sides clearly intended to agree the main terms. Written employment contracts are the norm and the safest reference point for both parties.

How long should I take to review an employment contract?

Two to five working days for most roles. Senior, equity-heavy, or international contracts justify a week and a solicitor’s review. Don’t sign the contract in the same hour you receive the contract, even if you’ve already accepted the offer verbally.

Can my employer change my contract after I sign?

Not unilaterally on the important terms. Pay, hours, and duties usually require your consent. The contract may include a variation clause, but the courts read these narrowly. ACAS publishes [external link: clear guidance on contract changes → ACAS contract variation], and you have the right to refuse a change and raise a grievance.

What happens if I don’t sign the contract but start working?

You’ll usually be treated as having accepted the offered terms by conduct, but the absence of a written contract weakens your position on any disputed term. Push to get a signed version within your first two weeks.

Do I need a solicitor to review my employment contract?

For routine offers, often no. A 1-hour review with an employment solicitor is sensible for senior roles, anything with restrictive covenants you might breach, equity-heavy offers, or international contracts. Expect to pay £150 to £400 in the UK for a focused review.

What’s the difference between a contract of employment and a contract for services?

A contract of employment makes you an employee with statutory rights (unfair dismissal protection after 2 years, redundancy pay, statutory sick pay). A contract for services makes you self-employed or a contractor, with fewer rights and different tax treatment. The distinction is decided by the actual working relationship, not just the label on the document.

A final note

Read the contract. Then sleep on it. Then read it again.

The version you sign is the version that governs the next phase of your working life. Three extra hours of attention now will save you weeks of frustration later, and occasionally a great deal of money.

If anything in it doesn’t match what you were told, get the change in writing before you sign. If anything in it makes you uncomfortable, ask why it’s there. A good employer will explain. The rest is up to you.

About this guide. This is a practitioner’s checklist for UK readers, with notes for US, EU, and Australian jurisdictions where the law diverges. It’s general information, not legal advice. For your specific situation, consult a qualified employment solicitor. For free initial guidance on UK employment rights, the [external link: ACAS helpline → acas.org.uk] is a good starting point.