Since its introduction in 2002, there has been significant employment legislation to protect employees who may be employed on fixed term term contracts. In general, fixed-term employees must not be treated any less favourably than a comparable permanent employee. The legislation also stipulates that after 4 years employment on either a single , or a sucession of fixed term contracts, the employee has a legal right to be considered permanent and upon their request be given a revised open ended contract of employment.

Another fact that employers often do not appreciate, is that the ending or non-renewal of a fixed contract is, from an employment law point of view, the same as a dismissal and hence the employer must show that they have handled the dismissal fairly and reasonably.

Many of the historic reasons why it may have been advantageous in the past  to employ staff on Fixed Term contracts have now been removed and it may be more appropriate to employ staff on a normal open-ended contract of employment.

Further information can be found in the following Advice Note or by following links to other useful sites.

Fixed Term Contracts Advice Note (Word)
Fixed Term Contracts Advice Note (PDF)

(*)  As of 6th April 2009, the Statutory Dismissal Procedures were replaced with a new ACAS Code of Practice for handling dismissals. This indicates that dismissals due to the ending of a fixed term contract ARE NOT subject to the new Code of Practice.  It is therefore anticipated that ACAS will provide further guidance or another Code of Practice for such dismissals. To date these have not yet been released.