Oct 9, 2026 · 8 min · 6 segments
Andy Burnham might be about to do something really smart, and good for growth. Something that should have been done a while ago, and businesses agree. City AM Editor-in-Chief discusses exactly this in…
Um, there will be opposition to this, parts of the professional services sector in particular.
They effectively, uh, impose all sorts of restrictions on people, um, when they leave a job, how long they have to wait before they can go and work for a competitor.
The reason people have been saying, "Can we do something about this? Can we get rid of these?" Uh, is because it, it does act, uh, as sort of a way of gumming up the labor market.
It's the opposite of, of dynamism to have people who are itching to work and be productive and move on, um, uh, stuck in gardening leave for six months, twelve months, even eighteen months as non-compete terms.
The government has been lobbied by people at the sort of start-up, uh, and scale-up side of the tech sector in particular to do this.
Um, it is an idea that first came across my radar, um, about, uh, nine or ten months ago when Brent Hoberman, who's also a great advocate of this idea, spoke at the City AM Awards and specifically took aim, uh, at these restrictive non-compete clauses and said, "We've got to get rid of them." Why? Well, let me put it to you in the way it was put to me by a tech founder in the US, who said that all great tech companies and AI companies, um, are born in Boston.
They're all sort of born out of, uh, great universities on the East Coast, and then they grow in California.
So you could leave your job at a start-up A on a Monday and start at start-up B on a Tuesday, and it's completely dynamic.
Um, and it's part of the culture of risk and reward and failure and creative destruction and growth and innovation.
It's not the silver bullet, but I think it would be really sensible, and I know that there will be parts of the financial services industry and others, um, you know, who are forever suing people for poaching staff and going against non-compete clauses.
So there will be backlash to, um, what it looks like the government's about to do, but I would welcome it.
Um, I think it could have a, a really galvanizing effect, um, on parts of our economy, um, that, that, that need that agility and to be able to operate quickly and make quick decisions and hire people, and yes, fire people.
It should be the case that if an employer and an employee want to cut down the notice period or do away with it, they should be allowed to do that too.
This government, the Labour government, um, has focused very much on employment rights and workplace protections, and, you know, I've often said I think they go far too far.
Um, there will be opposition to this, parts of the professional services sector in particular.
They effectively, uh, impose all sorts of restrictions on people, um, when they leave a job, how long they have to wait before they can go and work for a competitor.
The reason people have been saying, "Can we do something about this? Can we get rid of these?" Uh, is because it, it does act, uh, as sort of a way of gumming up the labor market.
It's the opposite of, of dynamism to have people who are itching to work and be productive and move on, um, uh, stuck in gardening leave for six months, twelve months, even eighteen months as non-compete terms.
The government has been lobbied by people at the sort of start-up, uh, and scale-up side of the tech sector in particular to do this.
Um, it is an idea that first came across my radar, um, about, uh, nine or ten months ago when Brent Hoberman, who's also a great advocate of this idea, spoke at the City AM Awards and specifically took aim, uh, at these restrictive non-compete clauses and said, "We've got to get rid of them." Why? Well, let me put it to you in the way it was put to me by a tech founder in the US, who said that all great tech companies and AI companies, um, are born in Boston.
They're all sort of born out of, uh, great universities on the East Coast, and then they grow in California.
So you could leave your job at a start-up A on a Monday and start at start-up B on a Tuesday, and it's completely dynamic.
Um, and it's part of the culture of risk and reward and failure and creative destruction and growth and innovation.
It's not the silver bullet, but I think it would be really sensible, and I know that there will be parts of the financial services industry and others, um, you know, who are forever suing people for poaching staff and going against non-compete clauses.
So there will be backlash to, um, what it looks like the government's about to do, but I would welcome it.
Um, I think it could have a, a really galvanizing effect, um, on parts of our economy, um, that, that, that need that agility and to be able to operate quickly and make quick decisions and hire people, and yes, fire people.
It should be the case that if an employer and an employee want to cut down the notice period or do away with it, they should be allowed to do that too.
This government, the Labour government, um, has focused very much on employment rights and workplace protections, and, you know, I've often said I think they go far too far.
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