Permitted employment for children and young people

Jobs that children aged 13 and above can do

  • light agricultural and horticultural work
  • shop work including shelf stacking
  • delivery of newspapers, journals and other printed materials (but not collecting money)
  • shampooing and sweeping up in hairdressers
  • serving tables in a café/restaurant (but not working in the commercial kitchen)
  • office work
  • car washing by hand in a private residential setting
  • working in riding stables
  • domestic work in hotels.

In addition, young people aged 14 and above can work with their parents in a market if they have a work permit.

Jobs children aged 13 and above can NOT do

No child of any age may be employed:

  • in a cinema, theatre, discotheque, dance hall or night club, except if the child is performing and is licensed to do so
  • in a factory or industrial undertaking
  • to sell or deliver alcohol (except in sealed containers and under the supervision of a responsible adult)
  • delivering milk
  • delivering fuel oils
  • in any commercial kitchen such as a café, pub, hotel or fish and chip shop
  • collecting or sorting refuse
  • in any work that is more than three metres above ground or floor level
  • in employment involving harmful exposure to physical, biological or chemical agents
  • collecting money or selling or canvassing door to door
  • in work involving exposure to adult material or in situations which are for this reason otherwise unsuitable for children
  • in telephone sales
  • in any slaughterhouse or in that part of a butcher’s shop or any other premises connected with the killing of livestock, butchery or the preparation of carcasses or meat for sale
  • as an attendant or assistant in a fairground or amusement arcade (where gambling takes place)
  • in the personal care of residents in any residential care home or nursing home.