Updated October 2026
April 2026 — Fair Work Agency rules

Trial Shift Pay Checker

Answer five quick questions about your trial shift. We will tell you whether your employer was likely required to pay you National Minimum Wage — and exactly what you can do if they should have.

⚠️ High Risk of Illegal Unpaid Work: You are legally entitled to National Living Wage (£12.71/hr).

Unpaid Wages Owed to You

£76.26

Unpaid Hours

6.0 hrs

Legal Rate

£12.71/hr

Risk Score

9 / 13 (High)

Enforcement

HMRC / ACAS

HMRC Guidance on Unpaid Work Trials:

  • Genuine Assessment Only: An unpaid trial is only legal if strictly necessary to test specific skills (rarely more than 1 to 2 hours).
  • Productive Labour = Pay: If your trial involves serving actual paying customers or covers a standard staff shift, you are a worker entitled to at least £12.71/hr.
  • Right to Arrears: HMRC investigates unpaid trial shift exploitation and enforces backpay plus 200% penalties.
How to Report Unpaid Trial Shifts & Reclaim Pay →

What Makes a Trial Shift Legal?

Whether NMW is owed depends on the substance of what happened, not what the employer calls it. The Fair Work Agency (formerly HMRC NMW enforcement) applies four key tests:

1. Length of the shift

A genuine skills assessment is short — typically under two hours. A shift lasting half a day or more strongly suggests the employer was benefiting from your labour.

2. Whether you were observed throughout

A lawful unpaid trial involves a manager evaluating you the entire time. If you were left to work independently, it was not a genuine assessment.

3. Whether you did productive work

Serving customers, preparing food, handling calls, or doing tasks that benefited the business counts as work — and NMW is owed for every hour of it.

4. The purpose of the trial

Was the purpose to assess your skills, or to get work done? If the employer needed the shift covered and used you to do it, NMW applies regardless of the label used.

How Much Should You Have Been Paid?

If NMW was owed, these are the rates that applied from 1 April 2026. Multiply your rate by the hours you worked to find your minimum entitlement.

Age / Category Hourly Rate 2 hrs owed 8 hrs owed
21 & Over (National Living Wage) £12.71 £25.42 £101.68
18 – 20 £10.85 £21.70 £86.80
Under 18 £8.00 £16.00 £64.00
Apprentice (Year 1 or under 19) £8.00 £16.00 £64.00

Rates apply from 1 April 2026. If your trial shift was before this date, the rate for the relevant period applies.

What Can You Do?

Fair Work Agency

Report unpaid trial shifts. Complaints are confidential and the FWA can recover your arrears plus impose penalties on the employer.

ACAS Helpline

0300 123 1100 — Free advice. ACAS early conciliation is required before bringing an Employment Tribunal claim.

Employment Tribunal

Claim unpaid wages directly. You must bring your claim within 3 months of the shift. Free to apply.

Citizens Advice

Free, confidential advice on unpaid wages, employment rights and next steps.

Consider raising it informally first. A short, polite message to your employer asking for payment may resolve the matter quickly. If they refuse or do not respond within a reasonable time, you have the options above. It is unlawful for an employer to penalise you for asserting your right to minimum wage.

Frequently Asked Questions

Not always. A genuine recruitment assessment — where an employer observes and evaluates your skills throughout, lasting no more than one to two hours — may lawfully be unpaid. However, if you did real productive work (serving customers, preparing food, taking calls) that benefited the employer, National Minimum Wage is almost certainly owed regardless of what the employer calls it.
HMRC guidance — now enforced by the Fair Work Agency — indicates that a genuine unpaid assessment should last no longer than one to two hours. The longer the shift, the stronger the argument that it was productive work rather than a skills test. A shift lasting half a day or more is extremely difficult for an employer to justify as unpaid.
A full-day unpaid trial shift almost certainly entitles you to National Minimum Wage for every hour worked. You should first try raising it with your employer in writing. If that fails, you can file a complaint with the Fair Work Agency (which took over NMW enforcement from HMRC in 2026) or seek ACAS conciliation before bringing an Employment Tribunal claim. You have up to three months from the last unpaid shift to bring a tribunal claim.
No. If an employer asks you to do more than one unpaid trial shift, that is almost certainly unlawful. A genuine assessment of your skills does not require you to repeat the same tasks across multiple sessions without pay. Each additional unpaid shift strengthens the argument that the employer is obtaining free labour.
The Fair Work Agency (FWA) is a new enforcement body established in 2026, consolidating HMRC's National Minimum Wage enforcement teams and other labour market enforcement functions. It investigates NMW underpayment — including unpaid trial shifts — and can require employers to repay arrears plus a financial penalty of up to 200% of the underpayment. Complaints to the FWA are confidential.

About this guide

This calculator is maintained by UKMinimumWage.co.uk using published GOV.UK rates for 2026/27. Last updated October 2026. This site is not HMRC-endorsed.