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Employment Offer Letter
ERA 2025
A solicitor-drafted UK employment offer letter for England and Wales, updated for the Employment Rights Act 2025. Confirms key offer terms including role, pay, start date, conditions precedent, right to work checks, references, and contract issue timing.
What's included
- ✓Offer details and start date
- ✓Conditional offer wording
- ✓Right to work and reference conditions
- ✓Acceptance and expiry mechanics
Recent legal changes
An employment offer letter sits at the start of the employment relationship and must be drafted to anticipate several statutory frameworks that follow. Under section 1 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (as amended by the Good Work Plan in April 2020), every employee and worker has a day-one right to a written statement of particulars — the offer letter and accompanying contract together typically discharge this duty. Right-to-work checks under the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 must be completed before employment begins, and an offer can lawfully be made conditional on those checks. The Employment Rights Act 2025 brings unfair dismissal protection forward to day one for most employees, which makes the wording of probation and conditional offers more important than under the previous regime.
What is an Employment Offer Letter?
An employment offer letter is a written communication from an employer to a successful candidate confirming the offer of employment and setting out the headline terms — job title, start date, salary, hours, place of work, and any conditions attached to the offer. The letter is the first formal step in the employment relationship and, when accepted in writing by the candidate, creates a binding contract between the parties. The offer can be unconditional (binding immediately) or conditional (subject to satisfaction of stated conditions, most commonly satisfactory references, right-to-work verification, DBS clearance where relevant, and satisfactory completion of any pre-employment medical). This template provides both unconditional and conditional formats and includes the statutory information required for the section 1 statement.
When do you need one?
Issue an employment offer letter as soon as the employer has decided to make an offer and the headline terms have been agreed verbally. The letter should be sent before the candidate gives notice to a current employer or makes any other irreversible commitment in reliance on the offer. Where the offer is conditional, the conditions should be clearly listed in the letter and reasonable timeframes for satisfying them should be set out. The full employment contract typically follows separately, but the offer letter alone — once accepted — can create binding obligations on both sides, so it should be drafted carefully and reviewed before sending.
Last updated: 1 May 2026
Frequently asked questions
Is the offer letter legally binding once accepted?
Yes. Once the candidate accepts the offer in writing (or by clear conduct, such as resigning from current employment in reliance on the offer), a binding contract is formed on the terms set out in the letter. This is true even if the full employment contract has not yet been signed. To withdraw an offer after acceptance without breaching contract, the employer must either rely on a stated condition (in a conditional offer) or provide notice and pay in lieu of the agreed notice period — which can be substantial if the contract has commenced.
What conditions can lawfully be attached to a conditional offer?
Common lawful conditions include: receipt of satisfactory references, satisfactory completion of right-to-work checks under the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, satisfactory DBS clearance where relevant to the role, satisfactory completion of any pre-employment medical (subject to Equality Act 2010 restrictions on health questions), and verification of qualifications stated by the candidate. Conditions must be objective, capable of being satisfied, and applied consistently. Conditions that are arbitrary or that operate as a back-door route to discrimination on a protected characteristic are unlawful and unenforceable.
Can I ask about the candidate's health before making the offer?
Generally, no. Section 60 of the Equality Act 2010 prohibits employers from asking job applicants about their health before offering them work, with limited exceptions — including questions necessary to assess whether reasonable adjustments are needed for the application process itself, questions establishing whether the applicant can perform a function intrinsic to the role, and questions for diversity monitoring. Health questions can be asked after a conditional offer is made, and the offer can be withdrawn if the answers reveal that the applicant cannot perform the role even with reasonable adjustments — but this is a high threshold and should be approached carefully.
How is the offer letter affected by day-one unfair dismissal rights under ERA 2025?
The Employment Rights Act 2025 makes unfair dismissal protection a day-one right for most employees, removing the previous two-year qualifying period. This affects the offer letter in two practical ways. First, the probation period clause becomes more important: the employer should set a clear, time-limited probation with explicit performance expectations, and any decision to dismiss during probation must still follow a fair procedure capable of withstanding tribunal scrutiny. Second, conditional offers should be drafted with clear, objective conditions because withdrawing an offer after employment has commenced — even during probation — will engage day-one unfair dismissal rights from the moment work begins.