Flexible Working for Childcare and Caring Responsibilities

Ask about the pattern, not the circumstances

Your request should be about the hours and pattern you need. A sentence of context often helps a manager understand the timing, but you are not obliged to explain your family arrangements in detail. Keep the focus on what you are proposing and how it would work.

Common patterns for caring commitments

• • A shifted day, such as 8am to 4pm, to cover a nursery or school pick-up.
• • Reduced hours on specific days rather than across the whole week.
• • Term-time-only or annualised hours where the employer offers them.
• • Compressed hours to create a non-working day for a caring commitment.
• • Homeworking on days when a school run or appointment falls mid-day.

Be realistic about the hard edges

If the pick-up time is immovable, say so — it is better than agreeing to something you cannot sustain. Where you can be flexible, such as making up time in the evening or occasionally swapping days, say that too.

Handling term times and school holidays

If holidays are the real difficulty, address them separately: annual leave planning, unpaid leave where your employer allows it, or a term-time pattern. Trying to solve both the weekly pattern and the holiday problem in one paragraph usually muddles the request.

Emergencies are a different thing

Time off to deal with an unexpected problem involving a dependant is a separate matter from a flexible working request, and GOV.UK sets out the general position. Do not fold it into your pattern request; ask about your employer's policy on it separately.

Approval is not guaranteed

Employers assess requests against business needs and can refuse for the reasons set out in current GOV.UK and Acas guidance. Proposing a trial, offering an alternative pattern, and explaining how cover would work all improve the chances.