Garden leave means being told to stay away from work during your notice period while still being paid. This guide explains when it's legal, what you can and cannot do during it, and how it interacts with post-termination restrictions.
You hand in your resignation — or you're asked to leave — and your employer tells you to stay at home and not come in for the duration of your notice period. You're still employed, still being paid, but you're effectively locked out.
This is garden leave (sometimes written as "gardening leave"), and it's a common practice in UK employment, particularly in senior roles, financial services, and industries where client relationships matter.
Garden leave is a contractual arrangement where an employer instructs an employee who is leaving — whether through resignation or dismissal — to remain away from work during their notice period, while continuing to be employed and paid.
The phrase is informal: there's no legal definition of "garden leave" in statute. Its enforceability depends entirely on your contract.
Your employer can only put you on garden leave if your contract expressly permits it. There is no implied right at common law for an employer to exclude an employee from work against their wishes — in fact, in some cases, employees have a contractual right to work.
If your contract contains a garden leave clause (sometimes called an "exclusivity clause" or "right to exclude"), your employer can lawfully instruct you to stay at home during your notice period.
If there is no garden leave clause, your employer placing you on garden leave may itself be a breach of contract — particularly if you are:
Being on garden leave is still being employed. Your rights continue:
Your employer may restrict you from:
This depends entirely on your contract. Most garden leave clauses explicitly prohibit you from working for a competitor during the garden leave period. If yours does, you cannot take a job with a competitor until the garden leave expires.
You may still be able to do genuinely unrelated work (e.g. freelance in a different field), but you should check your contract carefully. If in doubt, don't — the risk is a breach of contract claim and potentially an injunction.
Garden leave and post-termination restrictive covenants (non-competes, non-solicits) serve similar purposes but operate differently:
| Garden Leave | Post-Termination Restrictions | |
|---|---|---|
| When it applies | During notice period | After employment ends |
| You are still employed | Yes | No |
| You are still paid | Yes | No (unless a specific payment is agreed) |
| Enforced by | Contract terms | Separate covenant clause |
Importantly, courts often take into account the length of garden leave when assessing whether a post-termination restriction is reasonable. If you served 6 months' garden leave, a 6-month non-compete starting after that may be harder for your employer to justify.
Yes. Garden leave is a contractual matter and can be negotiated. Your employer may agree to reduce or waive the garden leave period if:
This is common in practice. Many employees on long notice periods (3–6 months or more) negotiate an early release so they can start a new role sooner.
If your employer stops paying you during garden leave, fails to honour your benefits, or acts in a way that breaches the mutual trust and confidence implied in every employment contract, you may be able to:
Before you hand in your notice, check:
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