Agency Workers Summary - What You Need To Know

In the UK, agency workers' rights are protected under the agency workers Regulations 2010 (AWR). These regulations aim to prevent the exploitation of agency workers. Some employers may be inclined to afford agency workers less rights than full-time employees and instead treat them as a second tier worker. The AWR introduced a variety of protections for agency workers to combat this tendency, which apply either from the start of the agency worker's engagement or after 12 weeks.

The AWR are relevant to employers who engage agency workers through an agency but take on the "supervision and direction" of the agency workers themselves. The AWR are not triggered if the individual is genuinely self-employed (typically providing his/her services through a company of which he/she is a director and who is entitled to provide a substitute) or genuinely autonomous and, therefore, not working under the employer's supervision and direction.