The law defines any individual aged 5 – 16 as a “child”, in line with compulsory school age, and a "young person" as someone over compulsory school age but under the age of 18 years.

Someone becomes over compulsory school age in England and Wales on the last Friday in June in the academic year in which they reach the age of 16 or if they reach 16 after the last Friday in June but before the start of the new school year.

In terms of age limits, generally children under 14 years old cannot be employed.

Children are only permitted to do work that is unlikely to be harmful to the child's safety, health, development and school attendance otherwise work should be limited to participation in work experience.

Hours of work

• On a school day, children cannot work before the end of the school day. This means that children cannot work in the morning before school, although local authority byelaws sometimes relax this rule, for example to allow for children to do newspaper rounds.

• Children cannot work before 7am, or after 7pm.

• Children cannot work for more than 2 hours on a school day or for more than 2 hours on a Sunday.

• Children cannot work more than 12 hours in any school term week, a week being 7 consecutive days.

• Children under 15 years old cannot work for more than 5 hours on a non-school day (Mon-Sat).

• Children aged 15 or over cannot work for more than 8 hours on a non-school day (Mon-Sat).

• In any week in the school holidays (being a week that doesn’t contain any school days), children under 15 years old cannot work more than 25 hours.  

• In any week in the school holidays (being a week that doesn’t contain any school days), children aged 15 or over cannot work more than 35 hours.

A child must have a 1-hour break after every four hours of work.

Pay

There are no restrictions on the rate of pay that can be offered to a child.

There is a minimum wage rate for young people who are not apprentices, i.e. the 16–17-year-old rate.  As at April 2024, this rate is £6.40 an hour.

Holidays

Children must be given a two-week break from work in a year but don’t have to be paid for it.

Permit system

You will also have to check with your local authority, whether it operates a permit system for employing children of compulsory school age. If it does, you will need to provide certain information to the local authority and obtain a permit, such as the individual’s personal details, the details of their employment, a statement from the individual’s parents, details of the school the individual attends and a statement confirming that a risk assessment has been carried out.

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