Working hours for school leaders: heads, deputies and assistant heads

Headteachers, deputy headteachers and assistant headteachers in maintained schools in England do not have the 195-day year or the 1,265 hours of directed time that apply to other teachers. Their contracts are not time-bound. The School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document 2026 instead requires their employer to have regard to their work-life balance, and the 2026 edition adds new wording on weekends and school holidays.

What leaders do not have

The 195-day and directed-time provisions that cover classroom teachers do not apply to leaders, nor to teachers on the leading practitioner pay range or those paid an acting allowance to do a leader’s job. The guidance says leaders do not work to a time-bound contract, but the headteacher, or the relevant body in the case of the head, must still have regard to their work-life balance. See the 195-day year guide for the rules that apply to everyone else.

The document says leaders’ contact and duties during school holidays should be kept to a minimum, and that the workload of part-time leaders should be reasonable and fair compared with their full-time equivalents.

What the 2026 document adds

The document’s summary of changes lists clarity on expectations of leaders’ working hours and time. The new wording says:

• No teacher, including leaders, can be required to work on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday unless their contract expressly says so. Exceptions are a genuine emergency that could not have been anticipated, prevented or delegated, and activities the leader volunteered for.
• Expectations that leaders work weekends must be by exception and limited to urgent or unforeseen situations that cannot reasonably be scheduled within the normal working week.
• Employers must work with headteachers so that emergency and safeguarding responsibilities do not fall disproportionately on one leader across holiday or weekend periods.
• For heads, deputies and assistant heads, employers must consider how to maximise uninterrupted, non-contactable time during school holidays.
• Employers and heads should make sure leaders can take their contractual and statutory breaks without interruption.

Leaders cannot be required to supervise pupils at midday. The guide to teachers’ contract limits lists the other limits that apply to all teachers.

Duties of a headteacher

The document lists a headteacher’s professional duties: strategic leadership, developing and evaluating school policies, leading and managing teaching and learning, teaching, promoting pupils’ and staff safety and wellbeing, and managing and developing the staff, including appraising performance. The head must also develop clear appraisal arrangements and advise the governing body on pay recommendations, including whether a teacher’s application to move to the upper pay range should succeed. A head is entitled to a reasonable amount of time in school sessions for leadership and management, and to a daily break of reasonable length, for which a suitable person must take over the head’s functions.

Deputy and assistant heads

A deputy or assistant head carries out the professional duties of a teacher, plus any duties the head assigns, and plays a major role under the head’s overall direction in formulating the school’s aims and objectives, setting the policies to achieve them, managing staff and resources, and monitoring progress. They also take on any head’s duties the head reasonably delegates. If the head is absent, a deputy must carry out the head’s duties to the extent required by the head or the governing body. Deputies, assistant heads and leading practitioners are entitled to a break as near the middle of each school day as reasonably practicable. The deputy and assistant head profile covers the roles in more detail.

Pay for leaders

Leaders are paid on the leadership pay range set by the governing body, and recruitment and retention factors for those posts go into the range rather than into separate payments. See the leadership pay range guide and the headteacher profile.

What to check

• Read the contract wording on hours, weekends and holiday contact. Academy trusts may use different terms from the document.
• Ask how emergency and safeguarding cover is shared across holiday periods.
• If you are paid an acting allowance for leadership duties, note that the leader provisions apply to you during that time.
• Raise concerns about workload with the governing body or trust, and through your union.