rota-planner

---
name: rota-planner
description: Builds a weekly staff rota from the shifts you must cover, who is available and your wage budget, then reports the wage cost before you publish it. Use when writing next week's rota.
---

# A staff rota that covers the shifts and the wage budget

You give it the shifts, the people and the budget for the week. It gives you back the rota, the gaps, and what the week will cost before anyone sees it.

## What it does

1. **Refuse to start without all three inputs:** the shifts that must be covered (day, start time, finish time, how many people, which skill), the people (availability by day, hourly rate, age, contracted hours), and the wage budget for the week in pounds. If any of the three is missing, say exactly what is missing and stop. A rota built on guessed availability is worse than no rota, because it gets published.
2. **Price each person at the higher of their own rate and the legal minimum for their age:** GOV.UK gives the rates from 1 April 2026 as £12.71 for 21 and over, £10.85 for 18 to 20, £8.00 for under 18 and £8.00 for apprentices. If a rate you supplied is below the figure for that person's age band, stop and say so by name before scheduling anyone.
3. **Fill the hardest shifts first, not Monday first:** rank the shifts by how few people can legally and practically work them, and allocate those first. Working through the week in order leaves the awkward Saturday night with nobody free, which is the point at which a rota gets rewritten from scratch.
4. **Build the unpaid break into every shift over six hours:** GOV.UK states that "Workers have the right to one uninterrupted 20 minute rest break during their working day, if they work more than 6 hours a day." Show the break on the rota with a time, not as a footnote, and take it out of the paid hours only if that is how you pay it. Say which you did.
5. **Check the gap between one shift and the next, and the day off:** the same guidance gives 11 hours rest between working days, and either an uninterrupted 24 hours off each week or 48 hours off each fortnight. Any late finish followed by an early start under 11 hours is a break of the rules, so move it rather than noting it.
6. **Apply the stricter rules to anyone under 18, separately:** a 30 minute rest break if they work more than 4.5 hours, 12 hours daily rest, 48 hours weekly rest, and no more than 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week. These are different numbers, not a stricter reading of the adult ones, so run the under 18 check as its own pass.
7. **Keep every adult under the 48 hour average:** GOV.UK states "You cannot work more than 48 hours a week on average, normally averaged over 17 weeks." Add this week's hours to the person's recent weeks if you have them, and if you do not, flag anyone over 48 hours in the single week so the owner can look at the average themselves. Note whether that person has signed an opt out, because the answer changes what is allowed.
8. **Put the holiday cost in the total, do not leave it for later:** statutory leave is 5.6 weeks a year, capped at 28 days. For irregular hours and part year workers, GOV.UK's holiday reforms guidance sets accrual at 12.07% of actual hours worked in the pay period, for leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024, rounded to the nearest hour. Add a line to the cost showing 12.07% of this week's hours as holiday accrued.
9. **Total the cost and lay it next to the budget:** paid hours multiplied by rate for each person, the holiday accrual line, then the week's total and the difference from the budget in pounds, over or under. State plainly that the figure is before employer National Insurance and pension, which payroll adds. Then list what is still wrong: shifts nobody covers, people over their contracted hours, and anyone the rules pushed out of a shift they wanted.

## Then it checks

1. Every shift has the required number of named people against it, or is written out as uncovered. No shift has quietly vanished between the input list and the rota.
2. Nobody appears on two shifts at the same time, and every gap between one person's consecutive shifts is at least 11 hours, or 12 hours for anyone under 18.
3. Every shift longer than six hours shows a 20 minute break, and every shift longer than 4.5 hours for a person under 18 shows a 30 minute break.
4. Every person has an uninterrupted 24 hours clear in the week, or the rota states the fortnight position that covers them instead.
5. Every rate used is at or above the legal minimum for that person's age band, and no person under 18 is over 8 hours in a day or 40 hours in the week.
6. The cost total, including the 12.07% holiday accrual line, is shown beside the budget with the difference in pounds, and the arithmetic recalculates correctly.

Any check fails: name it, redo that step once. Failed twice: say what is wrong and stop.

## Rules

- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- Never invent an hourly rate, someone's availability, their age band or their contracted hours. Ask for it, and stop until it arrives.
- Never place a person in a shift they did not say they could work in order to close a gap. Leave the gap open and name it, because a rota that looks full and is not is the failure this is meant to prevent.
- This prepares a draft rota for the owner to check before it is published. It is not employment advice. Working time, minimum wage and holiday rules carry exceptions for particular jobs, sectors and workers, and anything unusual, including opt outs, on call time, sleep in shifts and term time contracts, should go to a payroll professional or employment adviser first.

## Built from

- GOV.UK, Rest breaks at work, https://www.gov.uk/rest-breaks-work and https://www.gov.uk/rest-breaks-work/young-workers, read 7 September 2026: the 20 minute break over 6 hours, 11 hours daily rest and 24 hours weekly or 48 hours fortnightly rest for adults, and separately the 30 minute break over 4.5 hours, 12 hours daily rest and 48 hours weekly rest for workers under 18. These are steps 4, 5 and 6 and checks 2, 3 and 4.
- GOV.UK, Maximum weekly working hours, https://www.gov.uk/maximum-weekly-working-hours, read 7 September 2026: the 48 hour average over 17 weeks and the opt out, plus the hard limit of 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week for under 18s. This is step 7 and part of check 5.
- GOV.UK, National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates, https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates, read 7 September 2026: the rates in force from 1 April 2026 of £12.71 for 21 and over, £10.85 for 18 to 20, £8.00 for under 18 and £8.00 for apprentices. This is step 2, and it is why the skill needs each person's age band rather than just their rate.
- GOV.UK, Holiday entitlement and Holiday pay and entitlement reforms from 1 January 2024, https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights and https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/simplifying-holiday-entitlement-and-holiday-pay-calculations/holiday-pay-and-entitlement-reforms-from-1-january-2024, read 7 September 2026: 5.6 weeks statutory leave capped at 28 days, and accrual at 12.07% of actual hours worked in a pay period for irregular hours and part year workers, for leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024. This is step 8 and the accrual line in check 6.
- GitHub Search API, https://api.github.com/search/repositories?q=claude+skill+staff+rota+scheduling, queried 7 September 2026, and anthropics/skills, https://github.com/anthropics/skills, 174,998 stars read from api.github.com on 7 September 2026: the search returned "total_count": 0, so there is no public rota skill to borrow logic from. Only the file format was taken from the anthropics/skills README, namely a folder holding a SKILL.md with YAML frontmatter carrying name and description.