As of 13 August 2026, AI can only partly create a legally compliant staff rota.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   Someone with a licence or accountable authority has to sign this before it counts.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, power-user skill, and roughly 1 hour until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open GOV.UK guidance on working hours, rest breaks, night work, young workers and discrimination, and note which UK jurisdiction applies to the workplace.
   2. Gather the current staff contracts, contracted hours, agreed working-time arrangements, role qualifications, leave records and any approved adjustments or restrictions.
   3. Export each worker's availability and commitments for the rota period, using neutral IDs where names or personal details are not needed.
   4. Write down the required staffing level, roles, opening hours, shift lengths, break arrangements, budget and any fairness rules in a single document.
   5. Paste the information and the copyable prompt into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, then ask it to produce the rota, coverage table and unverified-issues list.
   6. Compare every assigned shift with the contracts, availability, leave records, qualification requirements and the current GOV.UK guidance, and ask an HR adviser or employment solicitor to resolve any legal issue you cannot check.
   7. Correct the draft, record who approved the unresolved decisions, and send the final rota to staff through the workplace's normal scheduling system.

   Prompt

   Create a draft staff rota for a UK workplace using the information below. Do not claim that it is legally compliant unless every relevant rule has been verified against current GOV.UK guidance and our employment documents. If information is missing, ask for it or mark the issue as UNVERIFIED rather than guessing.
   
   Jurisdiction within the UK: [England and Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland]
   Rota period: [dates]
   Opening hours and required staffing by time: [details]
   Shift patterns, shift lengths and unpaid or paid breaks: [details]
   Employee names or neutral IDs, roles and required qualifications: [list]
   Contracted hours and any contractual restrictions: [details]
   Availability, leave and existing commitments: [details]
   Known working-time arrangements or opt-outs: [details]
   Night-work, under-18, pregnant-worker or other special restrictions: [details]
   Reasonable adjustments, religious observance and other agreed restrictions: [details]
   Maximum budget or overtime limit: [details]
   Fairness rules, such as rotating unpopular shifts: [details]
   
   Produce:
   1. A clear rota table showing each person, shift, role and breaks.
   2. A coverage check for every required period.
   3. A conflict list covering availability, contracted hours, rest, breaks, night work, under-18 restrictions, leave, qualifications, equality or adjustment concerns, and overtime.
   4. A separate list of legal and contractual checks that cannot be confirmed from the supplied information.
   5. The exact source or GOV.UK page to check for each legal point, without inventing legal limits or figures.
   6. A short list of decisions an employer or HR adviser must make before publishing.
   
   Treat the rota as a draft for human approval. Do not include sensitive personal details that are not needed for scheduling, and do not infer a worker's health, religion, family circumstances or protected characteristic.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.