Employment Rights Search Index Edition 1 · 17 September 2026

UK Google Trends · September 2021 to September 2026

Search demand moved with the statute book

A month by month record of United Kingdom search interest in two employment management terms, read against the commencement dates of the Employment Rights Act 2025. Every figure on this page is reproducible from the public Google Trends query linked beneath each chart.

Research presented by Adrian Borowski, for Timetastic.co.uk

Published 17 September 2026. Data retrieved 17 September 2026. Free to reproduce with attribution.

0 to 100
Relative interest in "employee management software", November 2025 to May 2026
26 of 51
Months before December 2025 in which the same term read 0
18 Dec 2025
Employment Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent1
6 Apr 2026
First commencement date, including the holiday records duty2

01 · Baseline

Four years of flat demand

Between September 2021 and November 2025, neither term registered sustained movement. "Employee management software" returned a value of 0 in 26 of those 51 monthly readings, which means United Kingdom search volume sat below the level Google reports rather than at zero. Its highest reading in the period was 20. "Rota software" moved inside a narrow band and peaked at 23 in February 2022.

Across the full five years Google records average interest of 16 for "employee management software" and 15 for "rota software". That pair of averages describes nothing that actually happened. Restricted to the 51 readings before Royal Assent, the means are 6.1 and 12.8: "rota software" ran at more than twice the level of the other term for four straight years. The five year averages converge only because the 2026 rise in "employee management software" is large enough to close a gap that was open the entire time.

Figure 1. Relative search interest, United Kingdom, 61 monthly readings

employee management software rota software
After Royal Assent 0 25 50 75 100 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 100 · May 2026 rota software
Google Trends relative interest, 0 to 100, indexed to the highest point across both terms in this query. United Kingdom, web search, all categories, past five years. The shaded region begins at the reading covering 30 November to 31 December 2025. The final segment is dashed because that month was incomplete at the time of retrieval. Source: Google Trends, this exact query, retrieved 17 September 2026.

02 · Inflection

The month the line moved

In the reading covering 31 October to 30 November 2025, "employee management software" returned 0. In the next reading, covering 30 November to 31 December 2025, it returned 42. The Employment Rights Bill received Royal Assent on 18 December 2025 and became the Employment Rights Act 2025.13

The series stepped again to 82 in the February 2026 reading. The Department for Business and Trade published its implementation policy paper, Implementing the Plan to Make Work Pay and Employment Rights Act, on 3 February 2026.4 It stepped a third time, from 66 to 93, in the reading covering 31 March to 29 April 2026, which contains the first commencement date. It reached its five year maximum of 100 in the reading covering 30 April to 31 May 2026, the first full month with the new duties in force.

The movement is not a single spike. It is four upward steps, and each one falls in a reading that contains a government act on the Employment Rights Act 2025. Two of the four steps are the same size, 42 points. Section 06 sets out what this observation can and cannot support.

Figure 2. The fourteen readings either side of Royal Assent

employee management software rota software
0 25 50 75 100 18 Dec 2025 Royal Assent 6 Apr 2026 in force Consultation open Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep 2025 2026 100 40
Same query, narrowed to August 2025 onwards. Dashed vertical rules mark Royal Assent and the first commencement date. The shaded region marks the government consultation on zero hours contracts, open from 2 June to 25 August 2026. Hollow end points mark the incomplete final month. Source: Google Trends, this exact query, retrieved 17 September 2026.
Table 1. The four steps in "employee management software" and the event in each reading
ReadingValueStepGovernment act falling inside that reading
Dec 202542+42Royal Assent, 18 December 202523
Feb 202682+42Implementation policy paper published, 3 February 20264
Apr 202693+27First commencement date including the holiday records duty, 6 April 2026. Fair Work Agency established, 7 April 202658
May 2026100+7First full month with the first phase in force
Table 2. Monthly readings, August 2025 to September 2026
Readingemployee management softwarerota software
Aug 202500
Sep 2025015
Oct 2025100
Nov 2025017
Dec 20254224
Jan 20264019
Feb 20268224
Mar 20266621
Apr 20269335
May 202610024
Jun 20267221
Jul 20267120
Aug 20266640
Sep 20263716

03 · What changed in law

The measures that took effect on 6 April 2026

The Employment Rights Act 2025 is being commenced in phases. The first substantial phase took effect on 6 April 2026 and included a record keeping duty that applies to every employer in the United Kingdom.

Table 3. First phase commencement, 6 April 2026
MeasureEffectSource
Holiday recordsEmployers must keep records of annual leave and holiday pay for six years. Failure to keep adequate records is a criminal offence carrying an unlimited fine. Underpaid holiday pay attracts a penalty of 200 per cent of the underpayment, capped at £20,000 per worker, reduced to 100 per cent if paid within 14 days.2567
Statutory sick payPayable from the first day of sickness. The lower earnings limit is removed.28
Paternity and parental leavePaternity leave and ordinary parental leave become day one rights.28
Collective redundancyThe cap on protective awards for failure to consult doubles from 90 to 180 days of pay.8
EnforcementThe Fair Work Agency launched on 7 April 2026. Its holiday enforcement powers will extend retrospectively to December 2025.58

Trade press coverage of the record keeping duty preceded the date itself. The reading covering 31 March to 29 April 2026 returned 93, its second highest value in five years.

04 · The second signal

The rota term moved on a different date

"Rota software" reached its own five year maximum of 40 in the reading covering 30 July to 30 August 2026, two months after the other term peaked and four months after the April commencement date. The government consultation Make Work Pay: ending one sided flexibility, reforms of zero hours and similar contracts was open from 2 June 2026 to 25 August 2026.9

The consultation proposes three rights: guaranteed hours reflecting the hours worked during a reference period, reasonable notice of shifts and of changes to them, and payment for shifts cancelled, curtailed or moved at short notice.910 None of the three is yet in force. Each of the three is a scheduling obligation rather than a leave obligation, and the term that moved during the consultation window was the scheduling term.

Query composition within the same dataset

Google reports the following related queries for the two terms over the same five year window. Percentages are Google's own change figures for the period.

Table 4. Rising related queries, past five years, United Kingdom
Parent termRising queryChange
rota softwarerota oneBreakout
rota softwarebest rota software+50%
rota softwarerota cloud+50%
rota softwarerota management software+50%
rota softwarerota software free-30%
employee management softwarewikipediaBreakout
employee management softwaresalon employee management softwareBreakout
employee management softwarebest employee management software+300%
employee management softwareemployee benefits management software+110%
employee management softwarefree employee management software-20%
Source: Google Trends, this exact query, related queries panel, retrieved 17 September 2026.

05 · Dates still ahead

What the timetable holds next

Table 5. Scheduled and expected dates after September 2026
DateMeasureSource
30 Oct 2026Duty to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment. Employer liability for third party harassment. Trade union access and recognition reforms.28
30 Oct 2026Employment tribunal time limits extended from three months to six in England and Wales.8
9 Nov 2026The same tribunal time limit change takes effect in Scotland.8
2027Guaranteed hours, reasonable notice of shifts and short notice cancellation payments, following the consultation that closed on 25 August 2026.9108

06 · Method

Method and limitations

  1. Source. A single Google Trends query in comparison mode: terms "rota software" and "employee management software", United Kingdom, web search, all categories, past five years, retrieved 17 September 2026. The query URL appears beneath every chart on this page.
  2. Extraction. The two series were read from the rendered chart geometry and cross checked against the value Google returns for the reading of 30 April to 31 May 2026, which is 24 for "rota software" and 100 for "employee management software". The extracted series matches that reading exactly. Values are whole numbers on Google's 0 to 100 scale.
  3. Relative, not absolute. Google Trends reports relative interest indexed to the highest point in the query, not search volume. In comparison mode both terms share one index, so a flat line for one term is flat relative to the other term's maximum rather than flat in absolute terms.
  4. Zero readings. A value of 0 means volume below Google's reporting threshold, not an absence of searches. Because "employee management software" read 0 in 26 of the 51 readings before December 2025, its later rise is measured from a low and partly unreported base.
  5. Incomplete final month. The reading covering 30 August 2026 onwards was partial at the time of retrieval. It is drawn as a dashed segment with hollow end points and should not be read as a decline.
  6. Data collection annotation. Google annotates an improvement to its data collection system near the start of this series. Readings either side of that annotation are not strictly comparable.
  7. Claim boundary. This document records the coincidence of search readings and statutory dates. It does not establish causation, and no causal claim is made.

07 · Dataset

The full series

All 61 monthly readings, reproduced in full so that the charts above can be checked line by line.

Table 6. Complete series, September 2021 to September 2026
Readingemployee management softwarerota software
Sep 20211212
Oct 2021011
Nov 2021015
Dec 2021120
Jan 20221013
Feb 20221423
Mar 20221616
Apr 20221016
May 2022016
Jun 20221314
Jul 2022110
Aug 2022109
Sep 2022014
Oct 2022015
Nov 2022913
Dec 2022917
Jan 20231016
Feb 2023011
Mar 2023018
Apr 2023013
May 2023915
Jun 202309
Jul 2023017
Aug 202300
Sep 2023013
Oct 20231410
Nov 2023013
Dec 2023020
Jan 2024016
Feb 2024012
Mar 2024012
Apr 2024010
May 2024013
Jun 20241013
Jul 2024130
Aug 20241415
Sep 2024016
Oct 2024013
Nov 2024014
Dec 20241616
Jan 2025014
Feb 20251419
Mar 20251915
Apr 20251322
May 20251214
Jun 20252016
Jul 20251112
Aug 202500
Sep 2025015
Oct 2025100
Nov 2025017
Dec 20254224
Jan 20264019
Feb 20268224
Mar 20266621
Apr 20269335
May 202610024
Jun 20267221
Jul 20267120
Aug 20266640
Sep 20263716

08 · Reuse

Cite this research

This page is free to quote, chart and republish with attribution and a link. It is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence, and the same terms are declared in the page metadata.

Borowski, A. (2026) Employment Rights Search Index, edition 1. Timetastic. Data retrieved from Google Trends on 17 September 2026. Available at: https://timetastic.co.uk/staff-rota-software

Journalists checking the figures should use the Google Trends link beneath each chart, which reproduces the query exactly as it was run.

About the publisher

Timetastic is a United Kingdom staff leave planner. Its homepage reports use by more than 18,000 organisations and 180,000 employees since 2012.11 Its anonymised leave records have been cited in the human resources trade press: HRreview reported on 13 May 2026 an analysis of more than 180,000 employees finding that 26 per cent ended the year with more than 15 days of unused leave and that nearly one in five holidays booked through the platform in 2025 were cancelled,12 and Workplace Journal reported on 22 July 2026 that 21 per cent of United Kingdom workers did not take their full annual leave allowance.13

The Burnout Board

The leave records behind those figures are surfaced in the product through the Burnout Board, which flags employees whose time off patterns put them at risk of burnout. Burnout Board is a registered United Kingdom trade mark, number UK00003555028, owned by Timetastic Ltd, filed on 12 November 2020 and entered on the register on 26 March 2021 in classes 9, 35, 38 and 42.14 The record keeping duty that took effect on 6 April 2026 makes six years of leave and holiday pay records a statutory requirement for every United Kingdom employer.5

09 · References

References

  1. Acas. Employment Rights Act 2025. acas.org.uk/employment-rights-act-2025
  2. UK Parliament. Employment Rights Act 2025, bill stages. bills.parliament.uk/bills/3737/stages
  3. DLA Piper. Employment Rights Bill receives Royal Assent, becoming the Employment Rights Act 2025. knowledge.dlapiper.com
  4. GOV.UK. Implementing the Plan to Make Work Pay and Employment Rights Act. Published 3 February 2026, last updated 25 August 2026. gov.uk/government/publications
  5. Lewis Silkin. Failure to keep adequate holiday records will become a criminal offence from April 2026. 27 March 2026. lewissilkin.com
  6. Baker McKenzie. United Kingdom: New record keeping obligations for annual leave. April 2026. bakermckenzie.com
  7. Azets. New holiday pay and leave record keeping requirements from 6 April 2026. azets.com
  8. Pinsent Masons. Employment Rights Act: implementation for UK employers in 2026 and beyond. pinsentmasons.com
  9. GOV.UK. Make Work Pay: ending one sided flexibility, reforms of zero hours and similar contracts. Consultation open 2 June 2026 to 25 August 2026. gov.uk/government/consultations
  10. Linklaters. Government launches consultation on zero hours and similar contracts. June 2026. linklaters.com
  11. Timetastic. Homepage. timetastic.co.uk
  12. HRreview. More than a quarter of UK workers lose three weeks of annual leave. 13 May 2026. hrreview.co.uk
  13. Workplace Journal. 21% of workers do not take full annual leave, Timetastic finds. 22 July 2026. workplacejournal.co.uk
  14. UK Intellectual Property Office. Trade mark UK00003555028, Burnout Board, owner Timetastic Ltd. trademarks.ipo.gov.uk
  15. Google Trends. rota software, employee management software. United Kingdom, web search, all categories, past five years. Retrieved 17 September 2026. trends.google.com