An employee handbook written for your business is a fixed £1,495 +VAT, agreed in writing before work starts, with the disciplinary and grievance procedures and the absence policies included.
The figure covers the handbook as one job, because its policies have to work together: the sickness policy points to the disciplinary procedure, and the holiday policy has to match what the contracts say. It is a starting price for one set of policies in a business with a single way of working.
Subscribers take 10% off, so from £1,345.50 +VAT. The figure you approve is the invoice, with no file-opening fee or expenses line added at the end.
The total is known after the work is done.
The whole handbook, fixed in writing before work starts.
Get my fixed price →Contracts, handbook and core policies built and included, plus employment questions answered before you act, on a twelve-month agreement at £5,988 +VAT over the year.
The employment law subscription →
A five-person office and a forty-person operation across three sites both need a staff handbook, and charging the same for both would overcharge one of them. Each of these makes it a bigger job, and you get the figure before we start.
Different terms for different teams, each needing its own policies.
Unusual hours, or sector rules that the policies have to follow.
An existing handbook that has to be untangled before it can be rewritten.
Staff joining from another business on their existing terms.
No law says you must have a staff handbook. Three things that normally sit inside one are effectively compulsory.
Every employee and worker must have a written statement of their main terms on or before their first day, under the Employment Rights Act 1996. The written statement is a separate document from the handbook.
A written policy is a legal requirement once you have five or more employees.
The Acas Code sets the standard a tribunal measures you against, and an award can move by up to 25% where it was not followed. More on a disciplinary procedure for a small business.
As an illustration, take nine staff on the same terms, a mix of full and part time, and a handbook last updated by a previous owner. One set of policies, written from scratch: from £1,495 +VAT. Two of the nine have never had a written statement, so the employment starter pack writes their contracts and statements too, from £895 +VAT. Together that is £2,390 +VAT, or £2,151 +VAT for a subscriber, each figure fixed before work starts.
Drafting a handbook and its policies is outside the activities the law reserves to authorised firms, so it can be priced as a fixed fee. Payroll, pensions and PAYE sit with Buzz Accounting. Work carried out by AD Solicitors carries the full SRA framework, including the compensation fund and the Legal Ombudsman. Work we carry out ourselves does not.
Buzz Legal handles contracts, terms of trade, employment paperwork and dispute preparation. Court work, and the other activities reserved by law, are carried out by AD Solicitors, authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (no. 8011228), and you are told which yours is before you spend anything. How this works, in full. This is information, not advice on your situation.
Ours is from £1,495 +VAT, or from £1,345.50 +VAT for subscribers, agreed in writing before work starts. That covers a staff handbook with the core policies, disciplinary and grievance procedures, holiday, sickness and absence policies, a remote or hybrid policy where you need one, and a handover. Several groups of staff, shift patterns, sector rules or TUPE make it a bigger job, and you get the figure first.
The handbook itself is not. A written statement of the main terms for every employee and worker on day one, a written health and safety policy once you have five or more employees, and a disciplinary and grievance procedure that follows the Acas Code are effectively compulsory, and a handbook is the practical place to keep them together.
Yes. The policy templates in our template library are a starting point you can fill in yourself. A template is written for no business in particular, and a handbook copied from a business that works differently can promise benefits you never meant to give. A template is a starting point, and it is not advice.
Longer than a single document, because the policies have to work together. Unusual shift patterns, sector rules or existing policies that contradict each other extend it. Where that happens, a usable core goes in first and the edges are refined after.
Yes. Review it at least once a year and after any significant change in the law. The next one is the unfair dismissal qualifying period moving from two years to six months on 1 January 2027 under the Employment Rights Act 2025. Take a signed acknowledgement from every member of staff each time it changes.
The number of people you employ, how they work, and the handbook or policies you have now. You get back a fixed price before any work starts. See the privacy policy for how we use your details.
From £1,495 +VAT, agreed in writing before work starts.
