Jobs children can and cannot do
Employment includes any type of paid or voluntary work done for a person, organisation or business considered the child's employer.
Jobs allowed
Jobs allowed include:
- agricultural or horticultural work
- newspaper and printed material delivery including collecting money
- shop work including shelf stacking
- hairdressing salons
- office work
- riding stables
- waitressing
- domestic work in hotels and other buildings offering accommodation.
Babysitting for friends and neighbours is not classed as 'employment'.
Jobs not allowed
Jobs not allowed include:
- delivering fuel oils
- street trading
- pub and bar work
- cleaning/operating machinery
- collecting money or selling/canvassing door to door unless there is adult supervision
- delivery of milk
- collecting or sorting refuse
- sale of alcohol, except in sealed containers
- work in a slaughterhouse, or in the preparation of meat or fish for sale
- telephone sales
- activities connected with the use of firearms
- personal care of residents in care homes unless there is adult supervision
- any work which is more than 3 metres above ground level
- anything involving harmful exposure to physical, biological or chemical agents
- work involving exposure to adult material or in situations which are for this reason unsuitable for children
- commercial kitchens
- fairground and amusement arcades
- building sites
- gambling clubs
- work in a cinema, theatre, discotheque, dance hall or nightclub, except in connection with performance given entirely by children
- markets (unless employed and directly supervised by a child's parent in connection with their retail business).
Find out more about restrictions on child employment - GOV.UK.