# Staff Rota Template: free UK download

Canonical: https://paddl-ai.co/templates/staff-rota-template
Last reviewed: 2026-09-11 by the Paddl team

Free weekly staff rota template with a shift key, a four-week hours summary and a holiday request log

## In one sentence

The Staff Rota Template is a free PDF for UK food businesses with 4 record sheets: weekly staff rota grid: monday to sunday with a total hours column per person, shift key and daily cover sheet: define your shift codes once with start, finish, unpaid break and paid hours, four-week hours summary: contracted hours against worked hours per person with an over/under column. Download it, print it or fill it in, and keep it with your food safety records; Paddl keeps the same records on a phone with timestamps and reminders.

A rota is the one document every member of staff reads every week, and the one most venues still build in a spreadsheet somebody made years ago. This free staff rota template gives you a clean weekly grid with room for a shift code or start and finish time per person per day, a key so the codes mean the same thing to everyone, a four-week summary so you can see who is over or under their contracted hours before payroll does, and a holiday request log so a request is written down with the balance it leaves. Print it, fill it in, and pin it up; or use it as the layout for the digital version when you are ready.

## Why you need it

- Staff are entitled to know their shifts in advance, and a published rota is the record that they did
- A four-week view catches contracted hours drifting over or under before it becomes a payroll dispute
- Holiday requests written down with the remaining balance stop the double-booked August weekend
- Working Time Regulations rest breaks and the 48-hour average are only checkable if the hours are on paper
- A consistent layout means a new manager can pick the rota up without learning somebody else's spreadsheet

## What is included

- Weekly staff rota grid: Monday to Sunday with a total hours column per person
- Shift key and daily cover sheet: define your shift codes once with start, finish, unpaid break and paid hours
- Four-week hours summary: contracted hours against worked hours per person with an over/under column
- Holiday request log: dates requested, approved by, and the entitlement remaining after approval
- Example rows on every sheet so the layout is obvious to whoever fills it in

## Record sheets

- **Weekly Staff Rota**: columns Staff Name, Role, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun, Total Hrs
- **Shift Key and Daily Cover**: columns Shift Code, Start, Finish, Unpaid Break (mins), Paid Hours, Section / Role
- **Four-Week Hours Summary**: columns Staff Name, Contracted Hrs/Wk, Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Total, Over / Under
- **Holiday Request Log**: columns Staff Name, Dates Requested, Days / Hours, Requested On, Approved By, Approved?, Entitlement Remaining

## How to use it

1. **Set your shift codes first** Fill in the shift key with the shifts your venue actually runs: E for the early, L for the late, S for a short. Codes keep the weekly grid readable; times go in the key.
2. **Build the week from the forecast** Start with the busy services and cover them first, then fill the quiet ones. Write the code or the times in each cell and total the paid hours per person in the last column.
3. **Check the four-week summary before publishing** Carry each person's weekly total into the summary sheet. Anyone drifting over contracted hours is a cost; anyone drifting under is a grievance. Fix it before the rota goes up.
4. **Log every holiday request as it arrives** Write the dates, who approved it and the balance left. Use the free holiday entitlement calculator to work out the balance for part-time and zero-hours staff.

## Tips

- Publish the rota at least two weeks ahead; late rotas are the biggest single cause of hospitality staff turnover
- Keep unpaid breaks in the shift key, not the grid, so paid hours total correctly
- Use the four-week summary as the accrual input for irregular-hours staff: 12.07% of the worked hours is their holiday
- Photograph the published rota each week so you have a dated record if hours are ever disputed
- Paddl builds the rota against the sales forecast, publishes it to staff phones and turns it into timesheets and payroll automatically

Download the file from https://paddl-ai.co/templates/staff-rota-template (email required). The Paddl features that keep the same records: https://paddl-ai.co/features/rota, https://paddl-ai.co/features/team.