By Fi Morrison-Arnthal, Founder and Managing Director of Ambitions Travel Recruitment, placing leisure travel professionals across the UK, South Africa, and North America.
Non-compete clauses affect around 5 million employees in Great Britain, and the UK government is currently consulting on whether to limit, restrict, or ban them altogether.
We asked our network directly. Here’s what leisure travel professionals actually think, and what’s coming next, in the UK and beyond.
Are non-competes fair? Here’s what leisure travel professionals told us
Non-compete clauses come up in almost every senior hire conversation we have in leisure travel. Businesses want to protect client relationships and commercial knowledge. Candidates want the freedom to build a career without unreasonable restrictions. Both are valid positions, so we put it to a vote.
Source: Ambitions Travel Recruitment LinkedIn poll of leisure travel professionals, August 2026.
From our founder: Fi Morrison-Arnthal, Founder and MD, Ambitions Travel Recruitment
Non-compete clauses come up in almost every senior hire conversation we have in leisure travel recruitment. Businesses naturally want to protect client relationships and commercial knowledge/future business. Candidates (employees) want the freedom to build their career without unreasonable restriction. After all, they’ve built their contacts — 1 individual, 1 brand. Both are valid. What do you think?
Well over half of our leisure travel network thinks non-competes are unfair to employees outright. Add in the near-third who’d only accept one capped at three months, and that’s 88% of respondents who think the current status quo, where non-competes can run to six, twelve, even twenty-four months with little real challenge, goes too far. Just 7% think they’re fair as they stand. That lines up almost exactly with where the UK government itself appears to be leaning.
Why is the UK reviewing non-compete clauses right now?
The starting point in UK law has always been that a non-compete clause, like any restraint of trade, is unenforceable unless an employer can prove it’s reasonable. In practice, very few are ever tested in court, but that doesn’t mean they don’t work. Most people simply comply, because the clause is sitting in front of them in black and white, and challenging it means risking a ‘potential’ costly legal fight.
The Department for Business and Trade published a working paper in November 2025 setting out reform options, with responses invited through to February 2026. Its own research is stark: around 5 million employees in Great Britain are working under a non-compete, typically lasting around six months, and UK use of non-competes is actually higher than in comparable US and European markets, with roughly 26% of workers covered by one, according to LSE research led by John Van Reenen.
This isn’t just a senior-hire issue, either. Competition and Markets Authority research found 20% to 30% of workers in lower-paid roles believe they’re covered by a non-compete too, including over 20% of people in accommodation and food services, a sector that sits right alongside leisure travel.
The market we see
In luxury and leisure travel specifically, we see the impact of long non-competes constantly in senior hiring, good people sitting out the market for months because of a clause that would likely never survive a court challenge, and good businesses losing access to talent as a result.
What reform options is the government considering?
- A statutory time limit — most likely 3 months, echoing a 2023 commitment from the previous government that was never implemented. Some proposals link the limit to company size (e.g. 3 months for employers with 250+ staff, 6 months for smaller businesses).
- An outright ban — making non-competes unenforceable entirely, as several US states already do.
- A salary threshold ban — non-competes only enforceable above a set salary, protecting lower earners who can’t afford to challenge one in court.
- A combined approach — ban below a threshold, statutory limit above it.
The reasoning is economic as much as it is about fairness. Government analysis links a chunk of the UK’s productivity slowdown to reduced movement of people and capital between businesses, and cites the US Federal Trade Commission’s estimate that a federal non-compete ban there would generate 8,500 more new businesses a year and lift patent filings by 20% to 34%. The paper also acknowledges the counter-argument that non-competes give employers confidence to invest in training, and removing them entirely could see firm-sponsored training and R&D spend drop.
How would this affect non-compete clauses in UK leisure travel businesses?
If reform lands anywhere close to what’s proposed, a six or twelve-month non-compete you’re currently relying on may simply become unenforceable. Now is the time to look at what you actually need to protect: client relationships, confidential pricing, supplier terms, and whether a well-drafted non-solicitation or confidentiality clause does that job better than a blanket non-compete ever did. For candidates, a non-compete in your contract is not automatically valid just because it’s there; the law has always required it to be reasonable, and reform would simply make that harder for employers to ignore.
How does the rest of the world handle non-competes?
Ambitions Travel Recruitment places across the UK, South Africa, GCC, Asia and North America, and the direction of travel looks different depending on where you’re hiring.
UNITED STATES
The most fragmented, fast-moving picture globally. California, North Dakota and Oklahoma have banned non-competes outright for years. Washington State bans them below roughly £93,000 in salary. In September 2025, the FTC opened a fresh federal inquiry, having previously tried to ban non-competes nationwide; its own estimate put the average worker gain from a federal ban at $524 (0.86%) a year in extra earnings.
FRANCE, GERMANY, ITALY
A completely different approach: non-competes are allowed, but only if the employer pays the employee compensation for the entire restricted period. If you want to restrict someone’s next move, you pay for the privilege; it shifts a non-compete from a free protection to a genuine commercial decision.
AUSTRIA, LUXEMBOURG, AUSTRALIA
All three use a salary threshold model, similar to one of the UK options on the table. Research on Austria’s 2006 reform found that removing non-competes for lower-paid workers measurably increased their mobility into better-paid roles. Australia announced in March 2025 that it will ban non-competes for anyone earning under AUD $175,000 (roughly £85,000), a close cousin of the UK’s proposed threshold model.
SOUTH AFRICA
South Africa takes the opposite starting position to the UK. A restraint of trade is presumed valid and enforceable, and it’s the employee who must prove it’s unreasonable to escape it, not the employer who must justify it. Courts still won’t enforce vague or overbroad clauses, and recent case law shows a willingness to narrow restraints to specific conduct (like client solicitation) rather than blocking someone from working at all, but the burden of proof sits firmly with the person leaving.
UAE AND WIDER GCC
The UAE Labour Law permits non-competes where an employee has genuine access to sensitive business information, capped by law at two years, though courts routinely reduce that in practice, often down to six months, unless the employer can justify more. Clauses must be reasonable in duration, geography and scope, and a non-compete is automatically void if the employer terminates the contract unlawfully. Free zones like the DIFC and ADGM apply their own common law-based rules, closer in spirit to the UK’s reasonableness test.
The common thread across every one of these markets: the direction is towards less restriction, not more, and towards protecting lower and mid-earners specifically, even where senior non-competes remain in some form.
Ambitions Travel Recruitment’s view: We see the impact of long non-competes constantly in senior leisure travel hiring, with good people sitting out the market for months because of a clause that would likely never survive a court challenge, and good businesses losing access to talent as a result. A shorter, clearer limit would be a fairer starting point for everyone in this industry, and it would bring the UK closer in line with where most of the markets we recruit into are already heading.
Employers
Talk to Ambitions Travel Recruitment about writing contracts that actually protect your business, without relying on a clause that may not hold up.
Candidates
Check what your contract actually says before you sign, and talk to us first if you’re not sure where you stand.
Related Reading:
Is £12.71 an Hour Enough for Travel Industry Workers in 2026? | The Ultimate Guide to Resignations
Frequently asked questions about non-compete clauses
Only if an employer can show the restriction is reasonable in scope, geography and length. Many non-competes are drafted broadly and would struggle to survive a genuine legal challenge, but very few are ever tested in court, so most people simply comply without knowing this.
There’s currently no statutory limit. Six months is the most common duration, though some run to twelve months or longer. The government is consulting on introducing a cap, most likely around three months, following a working paper published in November 2025.
Not yet. The Department for Business and Trade is consulting on options ranging from a statutory time limit to an outright ban, with a decision expected following review of responses submitted by the February 2026 deadline. No date has been set for implementation.
Some do. California, North Dakota and Oklahoma ban them outright in the US. France, Germany and Italy require employers to pay compensation for the restricted period. Austria, Luxembourg and Australia use a salary threshold, similar to one of the UK’s proposed options.
Yes, in principle, signing the contract means agreeing to its terms. But a clause being signed doesn’t automatically make it enforceable if it’s later shown to be unreasonable in scope, duration or geography when tested by a court.
Yes. Unlike the UK, South African law presumes a restraint of trade is valid and enforceable from the outset. It’s the employee who must prove the clause is unreasonable to escape it, which is the reverse of the UK’s starting position.
UAE Labour Law caps non-competes at two years by statute, but courts routinely reduce that in practice — often to six months or less — unless the employer can demonstrate a genuine ongoing need for the longer period.
