Right to Disconnect

In recruiter context

Not yet UK law (unlike France, Spain, and Ireland which have right-to-disconnect statutes). The 2024 UK government consultation proposed a statutory right with employer-specific implementation. Several large UK employers have introduced unilateral policies — Sky, Channel 4, Volkswagen UK, and others — typically banning expectation of response outside contracted hours. For job-seekers in 2026, asking about a company's policy on out-of-hours communication is increasingly normal. Where there's no policy, the practical default depends on culture: financial services and consulting expect availability; some growth-stage SaaS explicitly discourages it.