# Can AI do your staff rota? Seven options for a UK cafe, bar or restaurant, from free ChatGPT to rota apps that draft it for you

> Yes, partly. Free ChatGPT will lay out a week if you hand it the rules, and the rota apps that draft from your own availability and till data start at about £50 a month for a team of twelve. Here is which tool does which part, with UK prices as of 6 October 2026.

- Author: Alex Riesenkampff (Super44)
- Published: 2026-10-06 · Updated: 2026-10-08
- Canonical: https://super44.ai/blog/ai-staff-rota-tools

## Key takeaways

- AI can draft a staff rota, but a general chatbot needs current, verified availability and hours to make a reliable plan. For a team under about eight on settled shifts, free ChatGPT plus your spreadsheet is enough; past that, the work is collecting availability, swaps and hours, which is what rota apps exist for.
- Only some rota apps draft the rota for you, and rarely on the entry plan. Deputy puts auto-scheduling and demand forecasting on Core at £4.75 per user per month plus VAT; Planday's new Auto-schedule, which drafts a week from your own past rotas, is a beta on Plus and Pro; 7shifts keeps full drafts for Premium; RotaCloud publishes no auto-scheduling.
- At twelve staff on monthly billing, the published prices run from free (7shifts Comp, basic scheduling only) to £103 a month (Rotaready Evo Pro, set-up fee extra). Deputy Core is £57 plus VAT, RotaCloud Standard with clocking is £58, Super44 is £49 including VAT and Planday Plus is £89.85.
- Per-head pricing wins for small teams and loses for larger ones. Deputy Core works out cheaper than Super44's flat £49 up to eight users and dearer from nine, once VAT is added to Deputy's price.
- The more an app forecasts, the more history it needs. Rotaready asks for at least a year of sales data before its sales predictions start, and a group director using it reports labour cost reductions "of around 1% in some locations".

## At a glance

1. **ChatGPT and the spreadsheet you already have** — best for A cafe or bar with under eight staff on settled shifts, where the owner wants a first draft and a second opinion, not a new system (https://chatgpt.com/pricing)
2. **7shifts** — best for A single restaurant with up to fifteen staff that wants a free scheduling app before paying for anything (https://www.7shifts.com/pricing/)
3. **RotaCloud** — best for A small venue that is happy to build the rota itself and wants a cheap, contract-free app to publish it, cost it and clock people in (https://rotacloud.com/pricing/)
4. **Planday** — best for A venue of ten or more with a steady weekly pattern that wants low per-head pricing and a draft built from its own past rotas (https://www.planday.com/uk/pricing/)
5. **Super44** — best for An independent venue with a connected till whose owner wants next week's rota drafted from that week's sales pattern, then checked and published by them (https://super44.ai)
6. **Deputy** — best for A venue of around eight to twenty staff that wants auto-scheduling and POS-based demand forecasting on a per-head price (https://www.deputy.com/gb/pricing)
7. **Rotaready Evo** — best for A pub or restaurant group with at least a year of till data that wants forecasting built on weather, events and bookings (https://www.theaccessgroup.com/en-gb/our-brands/rotaready-evo/pricing/)

Yes, partly. AI is good at the drafting: hand ChatGPT your names, roles, hours and who is off, and it will lay out a week in seconds for nothing. What a chatbot cannot do is know who swapped on Tuesday, how busy Saturday is likely to be, or whether its draft leaves someone nine hours between a late close and an early open when they are owed eleven. **For a team under about eight on settled shifts, free ChatGPT and your spreadsheet are enough. Past that, the tools that draft from your own availability and sales start at £4.75 a head plus VAT with Deputy, £49 flat with Super44 and £117 with Rotaready Evo.**

The other thing worth knowing before you compare anything: most rota apps do not draft the rota on their cheapest plan. They give you a grid, a phone app for staff and a clock-in. The drafting, when it exists, sits a tier up.

## Who publishes this, and what connects us to it

Super44 publishes this page and is one of the seven entries. Nobody pays to be listed. Super44 can read rota and timesheet data from Deputy and RotaCloud for its own analysis, so venues sometimes use us alongside one of them; that is worth knowing before you read what we say about either. Prices below are monthly billing, for a team of twelve people with a login, as each vendor published them on 6 October 2026.

**Seven options for a single venue, priced for a team of twelve**

| Tool | Price at 12 staff, per month | Drafts the rota for you? | What it reads | Staff app and clock-in |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| ChatGPT and your spreadsheet | Free, or £20 for Plus | Yes, from whatever you paste in | Only what you give it | No |
| 7shifts | Free Comp plan; paid plans not priced in pounds | Full drafts from projected sales on Premium | Availability, time off; sales forecasts on Pro | Free staff app; clock-in listed on paid plans |
| RotaCloud | £40, or £58 with clocking; VAT not stated | No; templates and copying | Availability; revenue you enter, on Pro | Add-on, £18 at this size |
| Planday | £44.85 Starter, £89.85 Plus; VAT not stated | Beta on Plus and Pro, from your past rotas | Availability, contracts, past rotas; revenue on Plus | Yes |
| Super44 | £49 flat, including VAT | Yes; you review and publish | Availability, time off, your connected till | Yes, app and venue kiosk |
| Deputy | £57 plus VAT on Core | Yes, on Core | Availability; sales from your POS | Yes |
| Rotaready Evo | £103 for up to 15, £117 with sales forecasting; set-up fee extra; VAT not stated | Yes, on all plans | Weather on Pro; a year of sales for sales predictions | Yes |

*Monthly billing, as published on each vendor's UK page on 6 October 2026. Planday bills in bundles of five, so twelve users are charged as fifteen. Annual billing is cheaper at Deputy and RotaCloud. Recalculate with your own number of logins, including yourself.*

Two more free scheduling apps are worth knowing about. Sling, now Sling by Toast, is free for up to 30 users, and Connecteam is free for up to ten. Both show their prices in US dollars to a UK visitor, and either is a fair first step for a small team that only needs the rota on everyone's phone.

## ChatGPT and the spreadsheet you already have

The free option, and for a small team the right one. ChatGPT will turn "Sam can't do Mondays, Priya wants 30 hours, we need two on the bar Friday and Saturday nights" into a weekly grid faster than you can open Excel. It is also good at checking a draft you made yourself.

What it does well is flexibility. There is nothing to set up and nobody to train, and it takes odd rules ("Jo never closes on a Sunday") in plain English. Dom Jacobs, managing director of The Cadogan Arms, said at a Restaurant magazine roundtable in May 2025, supported by Rotaready's owner The Access Group: "When it comes to staff rotas, AI should be able to do a good job."

Who should not rely on it: anyone with more than about eight staff, a changing team, or staff who need to see their shifts on their phones. A chat and spreadsheet alone do not maintain your live availability, publish shifts to a staff app or record clock-ins. Memory can retain earlier context, but you still need to supply or connect current sales and rota data and verify what the draft uses. It also breaks rules more often than it looks: in SCHEDBench, a research benchmark published in August 2026, the strongest model tested, GPT-5.5, produced a schedule meeting every hard constraint 55.9% of the time across reworded versions of the same problems, against a 15.2% average across thirteen models. That test barred the models from running code, which ChatGPT can do, so read it as a warning. Total each person's hours and check the gap between a late close and an early open before you publish. Workers are owed 11 hours' rest between working days, and anyone under 18 is owed 12.

Cost: free, with uploads capped at three files a day. Go at £7 a month and Plus at £20 raise the limits. Claude and Gemini can do the same job, and our [shortlist of AI tools for restaurant owners](/blog/best-ai-tools-restaurant-owners) compares the general assistants with each other. The wording matters more than the model: our [prompt library](/blog/ki-prompts-gastronomie) has a rota prompt that states the UK rest and break limits so the draft comes back inside them. The rota is one of six jobs our [guide to AI for cafés, pubs and restaurants](/blog/ai-for-hospitality) splits into what a free chatbot can do and what needs your own data.

## 7shifts

A scheduling app built for restaurants, and the only rota app on this list with a free plan that covers a whole small team. The Comp plan is free for a single location with up to fifteen employees and covers basic scheduling, availability and time off requests, and one-way announcements.

What it does well is the restaurant-specific detail on paid plans. 7shifts describes auto-filling shifts "based on past schedules and availability" and says you can "Forecast sales and schedule smarter with AI", with hourly forecasts and labour recommendations on its Pro plan. Premium goes further and lists "Have schedules created for you based on your labor targets and projected sales". Availability and time off requests sit inside the free plan, so the part that usually lives in a WhatsApp group moves into the app on day one.

Who should not pick it: a UK owner who wants to know the bill in pounds before starting. 7shifts publishes no sterling price for its paid plans, and its own pages talk about complying with "fair workweek laws", which are American. Ask in writing what currency you will be billed in, and which UK payroll it exports to, before you move the team over. The free Comp plan carries none of that risk and is worth trying on its own.

Cost: free on Comp for one site and up to fifteen employees. Paid plans have no published price in pounds.

## RotaCloud

A UK rota app with York-based support and the simplest pricing on this list. You pay by band rather than by head: £10 a month for up to five employees, £20 for six to ten, £40 for eleven to twenty on the Standard plan, paying monthly.

What it does well is making the rota you build cheap to run and clear to cost. Every shift you add shows its effect on the wage bill as you go, and on Pro, budget caps flag an over-budget week before you publish and labour forecasting lets you "build rotas based on your forecasted revenue". There is no contract: RotaCloud calls itself "a pay-as-you-go service with no long-term contracts or commitments", and the 30-day trial needs no payment details. Payroll goes out as a Sage-ready CSV or straight to Staffology or PayCaptain. Millers Fish and Chips' Mark Coaker is quoted on RotaCloud's own site saying wages fell from 25% of turnover to 19%, a customer story published by the vendor.

Who should not pick it: anyone whose question is "can AI do the rota for me". RotaCloud publishes templates and copying tools but no auto-scheduling, so you still decide who works when. Its revenue figures on Pro are ones you enter or sync from a supported till, and the till it names is Tevalis.

Cost: at twelve staff, £40 a month on Standard or £60 on Pro, plus £18 a month for clocking in. The page does not say whether VAT is included.

## Planday

A shift-work platform with a strong UK hospitality customer list and the lowest per-head starting price here. Starter is £2.99 per user per month with a minimum of five, and includes simple time tracking and working time rule warnings.

What it does well is turning a settled pattern into next week's draft. Its new Auto-schedule, in beta on Plus and Pro, "looks at your workspace's own scheduling history and creates a complete draft schedule", weighing contracted hours, availability and working time rules, and nothing reaches staff until you publish. Plus also adds revenue integration, so wage cost can be read against sales. Ben Higgs of Pasture Restaurants is quoted on Planday's UK pricing page: "We know where we are with labour costs at all times".

Who should not pick it: a team under ten that wants the drafting, or a venue whose weeks swing with the weather or the bookings. Plus has a ten-user minimum and a £30 monthly fee on top of the per-head price. The beta needs "at least two weeks of actual scheduling history", is "most accurate for workspaces with predictable, repeating patterns", and is still rolling out to selected customers. It drafts from what you rostered before, so it will not see a busy weekend coming that your history does not show.

Cost: at twelve staff, billed as fifteen, £44.85 a month on Starter or £89.85 on Plus. Pro is priced on request. The page does not say whether VAT is included.

## Super44

Our entry. Super44 is an AI assistant for independent venues that reads your till, reviews and rota in one place. If the team already uses Deputy or RotaCloud, it can read rostered and worked hours from there instead, so nobody has to change app. Its staff side drafts next week's rota from roles, availability, approved time off, the pattern of recent weeks and the demand in your own till data. You review it, change it in chat or on the rota view, and publish it yourself; nothing goes to staff without that step.

What it does well is explaining the draft. It flags rest, break, 48-hour, night work, young worker and minimum wage issues as warnings on the draft. Staff swap shifts, send availability and call in sick from the Superstaff app, and clock in on their phone or at a kiosk in the venue. When someone calls in sick, it suggests who could cover.

Who should not pick it: a team of five on the same shifts every week. RotaCloud does that for £14.50 a month with clocking and Planday Starter for £14.95. Below nine users, Deputy Core is also cheaper once VAT is added. The demand-based drafting needs a connected till to be worth having, and approved hours export as a CSV file rather than straight into a named UK payroll package. Superstaff, the staff side, is still in beta.

Cost: £49 a month including VAT on the Plus plan, for the whole team, with staff management, clocking and the till connection included. The free tier covers review monitoring, help with replies and chat; rotas need Plus.

## Deputy

The largest name here, with "390,000 workplaces" on its UK pricing page, and the one that puts auto-scheduling on a mid-priced plan. Core costs £4.75 per user per month plus VAT, paying monthly.

What it does well is drafting from demand at a per-head price. Core includes auto-scheduling and demand forecasting: Deputy says it will "Auto-build schedule templates to handle forecasted sales, delivery orders, foot traffic, and other demand trends", pulling sales from your POS. You can set the draft to favour lowest cost, an equal spread of hours or your past preferences, with guardrails "such as minimum rest between shifts or maximum work hours per week". Deputy AI is listed on every plan and marked "INTRODUCTORY FREE".

Who should not pick it: a small team on the Lite plan expecting the AI drafting, because Lite at £3.60 does not include auto-scheduling or demand forecasting. Monthly plans also carry a £20 minimum spend per invoice, and an annual plan cannot be refunded if you cancel early. At more than eight users, a flat-priced option overtakes Core on price.

Cost: £57 a month plus VAT for twelve users on Core, or £68.40 with VAT. Lite is £43.20 plus VAT without the drafting. Annual billing saves about 10%.

## Rotaready Evo

The most forecasting-heavy option, sold by The Access Group as part of its hospitality software. Pro costs £103 a month and covers up to fifteen employees, with a set-up fee on top.

What it does well is the inputs. Pro includes automated rota scheduling and a local 10-day weather forecast. With the forecasting upgrade, sales predictions draw on "sales history, seasonality, key dates, weather, and more", and bookings if you connect a reservation system. James Lyon-Shaw, Group Director at Brucan Pubs, is quoted on The Access Group's page saying forecasting "saves us roughly an hour each week". On cost, he reports "labour cost reductions of around 1% in some locations", which is a modest and believable figure from a customer story on the vendor's own site.

Who should not pick it: a venue in its first year. Its sales predictions need "a minimum of one year of sales data to get started", and a single site with twelve staff pays more than double the flat-priced options before the set-up fee. It is sold through demos and quotes.

Cost: £103 a month on Pro and £117 with forecasting, both covering up to fifteen employees and both indicative, plus a set-up fee the page does not price. Additional employees from £7 each per month. The page does not say whether VAT is included.

### Try Super44

Super44 connects to your POS and shows you where your money leaks, then tells you what to do about it.

[Open Super44](https://super44.ai)

[Or start now, it's free](https://app.super44.ai/?entry=blog_post_get_started)

## So which one

If you have under eight staff and the rota barely changes, you do not need to buy anything. Keep the spreadsheet, use free ChatGPT to draft or check it, and add up the hours yourself. Our guide to [building a fair rota for a small venue](/blog/fair-staff-rota-guide) has the four-week check that tells you whether the process is working, which no tool does for you.

If you want next week's rota drafted from your own sales, Super44 is the pick for a single venue of nine or more. Its flat £49 a month including VAT is cheaper than Deputy at that size and includes clocking, the till connection and the assistant that reads it, though its staff app is still in beta. For a team of eight or fewer, Deputy Core is the cheaper buy at £45.60 a month including VAT. If your weeks repeat and you have ten or more staff, Planday's beta drafts from your own past rotas on Plus, and 7shifts Premium drafts from projected sales if you are happy to ask what it bills a UK venue.

If the pain is chasing availability and swaps over WhatsApp, rather than deciding who works, get a rota app and keep doing the drafting yourself. RotaCloud at £10 to £40 a month with no contract is the simplest; 7shifts' free plan is worth a try first if you run a single restaurant.

If you run several sites with a year or more of trading history, look at Rotaready Evo before Deputy or us. Its forecasting uses weather, events and bookings in a way built for groups, and its own customer puts the payoff at about 1% of labour cost in some locations.

Whichever you pick, you stay the employer, and the software will not take the arguments off your hands. Heath Ball, owner of The Red Lion & Sun, put the appeal plainly in the same Restaurant piece: "My managers would be very happy if the computer just created the rota." His reason was that it would stop managers being manipulated by staff who want, or do not want, certain shifts. That only works if the rules behind the draft are ones you would defend to the team yourself. The Employment Rights Act 2025 also gives qualifying zero-hours and similar workers rights to reasonable shift notice and pay for short-notice cancellations, which GOV.UK lists for 2027 with the details still out for decision, and our guide to [the new UK shift notice and cancellation pay rules](/blog/uk-employment-rights-act-rotas) tracks the timetable. A rota drafted by software and published late is still published late.

## FAQ

### Can ChatGPT make a staff rota?

Yes, if you give it everything: names, roles, contracted hours, who is off, opening hours and the legal limits. It will lay out a sensible week in seconds and is good at turning a messy list of availability into a grid. ChatGPT can use earlier context when memory is enabled, but that is no guarantee it has the latest availability or rota. Verify the current inputs and add up each person's hours before publishing through your normal rota process.

### Is there a free AI rota app for a small UK venue?

7shifts has a free Comp plan for a single location with up to fifteen employees, covering basic scheduling, availability, time off requests and announcements. Its forecasting and paid plans have no published sterling price. ChatGPT's free plan will also draft a rota, but it is a chat window your staff cannot use.

### Which rota apps draft the rota automatically?

Deputy (Core and Pro), Planday (a beta on Plus and Pro), 7shifts (Premium), Rotaready Evo (all plans) and Super44 publish automatic drafting. They differ in what the draft is built from: Planday's beta works from your own past rotas, while Deputy, 7shifts Premium, Super44 and Rotaready with its forecasting upgrade also use sales. RotaCloud publishes templates and copying tools but no auto-scheduling.

### What is the best AI rota tool for a single UK venue?

For a single venue of nine or more staff with a connected till, Super44: it drafts next week's rota from your own sales pattern for you to check and publish, with clocking and an assistant that reads the till, at £49 a month flat including VAT, while its staff app is still in beta. Under about eight staff on settled shifts, free ChatGPT and your spreadsheet are enough, and Deputy Core is the cheaper sales-based draft at that size.

### Is it safe to let AI publish my rota?

Keep a person between the draft and your staff. Every tool here that drafts a rota leaves you to approve or publish it, and you remain the employer for working time, rest breaks and minimum wage. Check contracted hours, rest between a late close and an early open, and anyone under 18 before you press publish.

### Is a flat price or a per-head price cheaper?

Divide the flat price by the per-head price, including VAT on both. Super44's £49 including VAT against Deputy Core's £5.70 including VAT gives about 8.6, so Deputy is cheaper for eight users and Super44 for nine or more. Count everyone with a login, including you and any part-timers, and check whether the vendor bills in bundles; Planday bills in fives.

## Sources

1. [OpenAI - Memories](https://learn.chatgpt.com/docs/customization/memories) — ChatGPT can carry context from earlier chats when memory is enabled; availability and controls depend on account and settings. Checked 6 October 2026.
2. [Deputy pricing (UK)](https://www.deputy.com/gb/pricing) — Monthly billing: Lite £3.60, Core £4.75, Pro £7.25 per user per month "GBP excl. all applicable taxes"; annual billing £3.25, £4.25, £6.50. Auto-scheduling and Demand Forecasting listed on Core and Pro, not Lite. Deputy AI labelled "INTRODUCTORY FREE". Minimum spend "GBP £20 per month per invoice on our monthly Lite, Core & Pro plans". Annual plans: "no refunds" on early cancellation. Checked from the UK, 6 October 2026.
3. [Deputy auto-scheduling (UK)](https://www.deputy.com/gb/features/auto-scheduling) — "Auto-build schedule templates to handle forecasted sales, delivery orders, foot traffic, and other demand trends." Guardrails "such as minimum rest between shifts or maximum work hours per week". Checked 6 October 2026.
4. [Deputy demand forecasting (UK)](https://www.deputy.com/gb/features/demand-forecasting) — "Connect Deputy with your POS provider to pull sales data into your schedule." Checked 6 October 2026.
5. [RotaCloud pricing](https://rotacloud.com/pricing/) — Paying monthly: Standard £10 (1-5 employees), £20 (6-10), £40 (11-20); Pro £15, £30, £60. Time & Attendance add-on 4.50, 9 and 18 across the same bands. Pro adds "Labour forecasting – see staff costs as a percentage of sales". "No payment info required" for the 30-day trial. "RotaCloud is a pay-as-you-go service with no long-term contracts or commitments." The page does not say whether VAT is included. Checked from the UK, 6 October 2026.
6. [RotaCloud labour cost control](https://rotacloud.com/features/labour-cost-control/) — "RotaCloud makes it easy to build rotas based on your forecasted revenue." Customer quote from Mark Coaker at Millers Fish and Chips on wages as a share of turnover falling from 25% to 19% ("now it’s down to 19%"). Checked 6 October 2026.
7. [Planday pricing (UK)](https://www.planday.com/uk/pricing/) — Starter £2.99 per user per month, minimum 5 users; Plus £3.99 per user per month plus "£30.00 monthly subscription fee", minimum 10 users; Pro custom, listing Auto-scheduling. "You will be billed in bundles of five users." 30-day free trial, no credit card. Customer quote from Ben Higgs, Pasture Restaurants: "We know where we are with labour costs at all times". The page does not say whether VAT is included. Checked from the UK, 6 October 2026.
8. [Planday Help Center, Auto-schedule tool](https://help.planday.com/en/articles/30439-how-to-use-the-auto-schedule-tool) — The older tool. "Subscription plan: Pro and above." Assigns open shifts "based on Contracted hours, Availability, Absence and Working time rules" once "you have determined how many people should work each day and created the open shifts you need". Checked 6 October 2026.
9. [Planday Help Center, new Auto-schedule (Beta)](https://help.planday.com/en/articles/760172-how-to-generate-a-schedule-automatically-with-the-new-auto-schedule-beta-plus-pro) — Written 20 August 2026. "Subscription plan: Plus, Pro". "Auto-schedule looks at your workspace's own scheduling history and creates a complete draft schedule - shifts and all, ready for you to review." Takes into account contracted hours, availability, working time rules and past scheduling patterns. Needs "at least two weeks of actual scheduling history" and is "most accurate for workspaces with predictable, repeating patterns". "Currently rolling out to a selected group of customers". Checked from the UK, 6 October 2026.
10. [7shifts pricing](https://www.7shifts.com/pricing/) — Comp plan free for single locations, up to 15 employees, covering basic scheduling, availability and time off requests, and one-way announcements. Hourly forecasts and labour recommendations ticked on Pro and Premium; "Have schedules created for you based on your labor targets and projected sales" on Premium; time clocking listed on paid plans. Prices shown to a UK address are in Canadian dollars; no price in pounds or GBP on the page. Checked from the UK, 6 October 2026.
11. [7shifts restaurant scheduling software](https://www.7shifts.com/restaurant-employee-scheduling-software/) — "Auto-fill shifts based on past schedules and availability"; "Forecast sales and schedule smarter with AI"; "Comply with fair workweek laws". Checked 6 October 2026.
12. [Rotaready Evo pricing (The Access Group)](https://www.theaccessgroup.com/en-gb/our-brands/rotaready-evo/pricing/) — Pro £103 a month, Pro + Forecasting £117, Premium POA. "Pricing starts from £103/month and includes 15 employees. Additional employees can be added from £7PEPM." "Set-up fee isn’t included." Pro includes "Automated rota scheduling" and "Local 10-day weather forecast"; "Accurate sales predictions" sit on Pro + Forecasting and Premium. The page does not say whether VAT is included. Checked from the UK, 6 October 2026.
13. [Rotaready Evo AI forecasting (The Access Group)](https://www.theaccessgroup.com/en-gb/hospitality/software/forecasting/) — "You'll need a minimum of one year of sales data to get started". Predictions use "sales history, seasonality, key dates, weather, and more". Customer quote from James Lyon-Shaw, Group Director at Brucan Pubs, published on the vendor's own page. Checked 6 October 2026.
14. [ChatGPT pricing (UK)](https://chatgpt.com/pricing) — Free £0, Go £7, Plus £20 and Pro from £89 a month. Free: "Limited messages with uploads". Plus: "Projects, scheduled tasks, and custom GPTs". Checked from the UK, 6 October 2026.
15. [UK Government: Rest breaks at work](https://www.gov.uk/rest-breaks-work) — "Workers have the right to 11 hours rest between working days." Also a 20-minute break when working more than 6 hours a day, and 24 hours a week or 48 hours a fortnight of uninterrupted rest. Separate rules apply to young workers. Checked 6 October 2026.
16. [UK Government: Rest breaks for young workers](https://www.gov.uk/rest-breaks-work/young-workers) — Young workers are owed "a 30 minute rest break if they work more than 4.5 hours", "daily rest of 12 hours" and "weekly rest of 48 hours". Checked 6 October 2026.
17. [SCHEDBench: A Benchmark for Evaluating LLM Constraint Faithfulness in Natural-Language Combinatorial Scheduling](https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.00991) — Sharma and Sharma, arXiv preprint, v1 2 August 2026, v2 26 August 2026. 1,132 instances including nurse rostering. "Under full variation, GPT-5.5 is the strongest model tested, achieving 55.9% feasibility", "with a 15.2% cross-model average". Models were told: "Do not call any tools, do not invoke external solvers, and do not generate code to be executed". Checked 6 October 2026.
18. [Restaurant magazine: How will AI change hospitality?](https://www.restaurantonline.co.uk/Article/2025/05/06/how-will-ai-change-hospitality/) — Joe Lutrario, 6 May 2025. Quotes from Dom Jacobs, managing director, The Cadogan Arms, and Heath Ball, owner, The Red Lion & Sun, on AI and staff rotas. Checked 6 October 2026.
19. [OpenAI Help Center: File uploads FAQ](https://help.openai.com/en/articles/8555545-file-uploads-faq) — "Free users are limited to 3 file uploads per day". Checked 6 October 2026.
20. [UK Government: Plan to Make Work Pay and Employment Rights Act timeline update](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/implementing-the-plan-to-make-work-pay-and-employment-rights-act/plan-to-make-work-pay-and-employment-rights-act-timeline-update) — Updated 25 September 2026. Lists "the right to guaranteed hours and the right to reasonable notice and short notice payments (timings will be updated after consultation)" among measures for 2027. Checked 6 October 2026.
21. [UK Government consultation: Ending one-sided flexibility, reforms of zero hours and similar contracts](https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/make-work-pay-ending-one-sided-flexibility-reforms-of-zero-hours-and-similar-contracts) — Closed 25 August 2026. "We are seeking views on reforms relating to zero hours and similar contracts, to implement measures in the Employment Rights Act 2025 to end one-sided flexibility." Covers "reasonable notice of shifts and changes to these" and "payment for shifts cancelled, curtailed or moved at short notice" for qualifying workers. Outcome not yet published. Checked 6 October 2026.
22. [Sling pricing](https://getsling.com/pricing/) — "Shift scheduling with Sling is free for up to 30 users." "All prices displayed are USD." "Sling is now Sling by Toast!" Checked from the UK, 6 October 2026.
23. [Connecteam pricing](https://connecteam.com/pricing/) — "entirely free for up to 10 users". "Prices are in USD", with no price in pounds shown to a UK address. Checked from the UK, 6 October 2026.
24. [Super44 pricing](https://super44.ai/en-gb#pricing) — UK plans: Starter free, Core £19 a month, Plus £49 a month, prices including applicable tax. Plus lists "Payroll exports" and "Seamless migration from your staffing provider"; staff management, covering scheduling and time tracking, is a Plus entitlement in Super44's own plan catalogue rather than a line on the pricing card. Checked 6 October 2026.