Flexible Working UK: Right to Request Guide for Employers (2026)

Flexible working is no longer a perk — it's a statutory right. Since April 2024, every employee in the UK has the right to request flexible working from day one of their employment, with no qualifying period. For employers, understanding how to handle these requests fairly and lawfully is essential. This guide covers everything you need to know.

What changed in April 2024?

The Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023 introduced significant changes to the right to request flexible working. Prior to April 2024, employees needed 26 weeks' continuous service before they could make a request. That qualifying period has been removed entirely.

The key changes are:

Day-one right: employees can make a flexible working request from their first day of employment.
Two requests per year: employees can now make up to 2 statutory requests in any 12-month period, up from 1 previously.
Faster response required: employers must respond within 2 months (previously 3 months), including any appeal process.
Consultation required: employers must consult with the employee before refusing a request. A blanket refusal without discussion is no longer acceptable.
No business case from employee: the employee is no longer required to explain the impact of their request on the employer or suggest how it could be managed.

Types of flexible working

Flexible working is not just about working from home. The law covers a wide range of arrangements:

Arrangement	What it means
Part-time	Working fewer hours than the standard full-time contract (e.g., 3 days per week instead of 5).
Compressed hours	Working the same total hours but over fewer days (e.g., a 4-day week with longer days).
Flexitime	The employee chooses their start and finish times, usually around core hours (e.g., 10am–3pm).
Job sharing	Two employees share the responsibilities of one full-time role.
Remote / hybrid	Working from home, another location, or a mix of office and remote.
Annualised hours	Total annual hours are fixed, but the employee works different hours each week depending on demand.
Staggered hours	Different start, break, and finish times from other employees.
Term-time working	The employee works only during school terms and takes unpaid leave during school holidays.

Employer obligations: how to handle a request

When an employee submits a statutory flexible working request, employers must follow a clear process:

Acknowledge receipt — confirm you have received the request in writing. There is no statutory deadline for acknowledgement, but best practice is within 5 working days.
Arrange a consultation meeting — you must discuss the request with the employee before making a decision. This is a new legal requirement since April 2024. The meeting should explore the request in detail, consider alternatives if the exact request cannot be accommodated, and give the employee a fair hearing.
Make a decision within 2 months — the entire process, including any appeal, must be completed within 2 months of the request date (unless you agree a longer period with the employee).
Communicate the outcome in writing — if approved, confirm the new working arrangement and the start date. If refused, you must state which of the 8 statutory grounds applies and provide a clear explanation.

The 8 statutory grounds for refusal

An employer can only refuse a flexible working request for one or more of these 8 reasons set out in the Employment Rights Act 1996:

Burden of additional costs — the change would impose costs the business cannot reasonably absorb.
Detrimental effect on ability to meet customer demand — service levels would suffer.
Inability to reorganise work among existing staff — the work cannot be redistributed.
Inability to recruit additional staff — it is not feasible to hire to cover the gap.
Detrimental impact on quality — the quality of output or service would decline.
Detrimental impact on performance — business or team performance would be harmed.
Insufficiency of work during the periods the employee proposes to work — there is not enough work at the times they want to work.
Planned structural changes — the business is planning changes that conflict with the request.

These grounds are deliberately broad, but an employer must be able to demonstrate that the ground genuinely applies. A vague or unexplained refusal is likely to fail at tribunal.

Impact on annual leave entitlement

When a flexible working request results in a change of hours, the employee's annual leave entitlement may need to be adjusted pro rata. This is one of the most commonly mishandled aspects of flexible working.

The statutory minimum of 5.6 weeks remains the same regardless of hours. However, if the employee moves from 5 days to 3 days per week, they are entitled to 5.6 × 3 = 16.8 days of annual leave (rather than 28 days). Each "day" of leave represents a day they would otherwise have worked.

For employees moving to compressed hours (e.g., 4 longer days), the entitlement stays at 5.6 weeks but is expressed in fewer, longer days. An employee working 4 × 10-hour days gets 5.6 × 4 = 22.4 days of leave, but each day is 10 hours.

It is critical to recalculate and communicate the new leave entitlement whenever working patterns change. Failure to do so leads to disputes and potential underpayment.

Common mistakes employers make

Refusing without consulting — since April 2024, you must hold a consultation meeting before refusing. Skipping this step makes the refusal procedurally unfair.
Missing the 2-month deadline — if you fail to respond within 2 months, the employee can make a complaint to an employment tribunal.
Using grounds that don't apply — citing "burden of additional costs" when the request is simply to change start times (which has no cost impact) will not stand up at tribunal.
Treating requests differently based on reason — you cannot approve a request for childcare but refuse an identical request for a hobby. The reason the employee wants flexible working is irrelevant.
Forgetting to adjust leave entitlement — when hours change, leave must be recalculated pro rata. Many employers forget this, leading to incorrect balances.
Not documenting the process — if a refusal is challenged at tribunal, you need evidence that you consulted, considered alternatives, and applied a valid statutory ground.

How Leavely adjusts balances when working patterns change

Recalculating leave entitlement manually every time someone changes their working pattern is time-consuming and error-prone. Leavely handles this automatically:

Working pattern configuration — set each employee's working days (e.g., Monday to Wednesday) and Leavely instantly recalculates their pro-rata leave entitlement.
Mid-year pattern changes — if an employee switches from full-time to part-time partway through the year, Leavely calculates a blended entitlement covering both periods.
Compressed hours support — configure longer working days and fewer days per week. Leavely adjusts the leave balance so each "day" of leave correctly reflects the employee's actual working day length.
Real-time balance updates — employees and managers see the correct balance immediately after a pattern change, with no manual recalculation required.
Policy-level rules — set pro-rata rules at the policy level so they apply consistently across all employees on the same leave type.
Audit trail — every pattern change and its impact on leave balances is logged for compliance and dispute resolution.