TUPE Rights UK: Employee Protection on Transfer

Overview

TUPE is shorthand for the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006, a set of UK rules that kick in whenever an identifiable business or service moves from one employer to another. Rather than treating the transfer as the end of your old job and the start of a new one, TUPE treats it as a continuation.

Your contract moves across on the same terms, with your length of service intact, as if the new employer had been your employer all along. The regulations cover two broad situations. The first is a business transfer, where a company or part of one is sold or merged and keeps its identity under new ownership.

The second is a service provision change, which typically catches outsourcing, insourcing, or swapping one contractor for another. Cleaning contracts, IT support, facilities management, and catering are classic examples. TUPE applies to employees rather than genuine self-employed contractors. Once it bites, the incoming employer inherits your contractual terms, your continuous service, and most of your accrued rights, with only narrow exceptions around occupational pensions.

Key steps

1. Check whether TUPE actually applies. Not every business change triggers TUPE. A straightforward share sale, where the company itself stays the same and only the shareholders change, usually falls outside the regulations. Look instead for an asset sale, a merger that absorbs your employer, or a contract that's moving to a different provider. 2. Expect to be informed and consulted. Both the outgoing and incoming employers have a duty to inform recognised trade union or elected employee representatives about the transfer, why it's happening, and any measures planned. Where there are no representatives, an election process should be run. If fewer than a certain number of staff are involved, simpler rules can apply, so check current guidance. 3. Review your existing contract carefully. Before the transfer date, dig out your written terms, staff handbook, and any policies that form part of your contract. Pay, hours, holiday entitlement, notice periods, bonus schemes, and contractual benefits all travel with you. Spotting what's contractual now makes it much easier to challenge changes later. 4. Watch what happens on and after the transfer date. On the transfer day itself, your employment automatically moves to the new employer. You should not be asked to sign a new contract that waters down your terms. Any attempt to harmonise your pay or conditions downwards because of the transfer will usually be void, even if you sign. 5. Act quickly if something feels wrong. If you're dismissed around the time of a transfer, pressured into accepting worse terms, or simply not told what's happening, time limits are tight. Employment tribunal claims for unfair dismissal and failure to inform and consult generally need to be started within three months, so get guidance early rather than waiting to see how things settle.