Suspect your remote engineer is working two jobs? What UK, Dutch and German law lets you do

An employee working two jobs is not automatically breaking the law in the UK, the Netherlands or Germany. In the Netherlands and under the EU baseline, the law protects a second job outside the hours you pay for. In Germany it's generally permitted. In the UK the contract decides. In none of the three does the law protect doing the second job during paid hours. That distinction decides most of what you can do next, and it's missing from the pages we read, which are written for employees or under US law.

Below: the rule in each country in one table, what you can look at without a lawyer, what needs a documented purpose first, a five-step plan, and the clauses to write into the next contract. It's part of our EU engineering hiring compliance: contracts, IP and GDPR guides. It's general information, not legal advice. Talk to employment counsel before you act on a suspicion.

If the problem is that the person isn't who they said they were, go to what to do in the first 72 hours after a fake hire. This article assumes the person is real and the work is getting done, just not by someone who's fully yours.

Is a second job against the law? It depends on when and under what contract

There's no blanket ban in any of the three countries. The rule that applies depends on the contract and on when the second job is worked.

Jurisdiction	Rule	Source	What it means for you
EU baseline	Member States must ensure employers don't prohibit work for other employers outside the work schedule, or penalise it. Conditions are allowed on objective grounds such as confidentiality or conflicts of interest.	Directive (EU) 2019/1152, Art. 9	National law decides the detail.
Netherlands	A clause forbidding or limiting work for others outside your working hours is void unless an objective reason justifies it.	Burgerlijk Wetboek 7:653a	A blanket "no other work" clause is weak. In our judgment, a narrow conflict-of-interest clause is stronger.
Germany	Secondary employment is generally permitted without approval. Doing it in the main job's working hours breaches the employment contract. Declaration and approval clauses are permissible.	Kliemt.HR for Ius Laboris, 2021 (commentary)	Hours and disclosure are the main questions, but competing activity and rest-time limits can also matter. Ask German counsel.
UK	No statutory ban. The contract governs. If it's silent, an employer could still refuse permission where it reasonably sees risk or prejudice to the business.	Gateley, 2021 (commentary)	Read the contract first. Acting unreasonably carries claim risk.

The EU baseline and the Netherlands

Directive (EU) 2019/1152 is the Directive on transparent and predictable working conditions. Article 9(1) says Member States "shall ensure that an employer neither prohibits a worker from taking up employment with other employers, outside the work schedule established with that employer, nor subjects a worker to adverse treatment for doing so." Article 9(2) allows incompatibility restrictions "on the basis of objective grounds, such as health and safety, the protection of business confidentiality, the integrity of the public service or the avoidance of conflicts of interests."

The protection covers time outside the schedule, and a restriction needs a reason of the listed kind.

The Dutch version is Article 7:653a of the Burgerlijk Wetboek (the Civil Code). A clause that forbids or limits work for others outside the hours the employee works for you is void ("nietig") unless it can be justified on an objective ground. A Dutch employer who writes "no other work, ever" into a contract has a clause that may not hold. An amendment to 7:653a is scheduled for 1 January 2028, so check the current text.

Germany and the UK

Kliemt.HR, writing for Ius Laboris in 2021 (before the Directive's August 2022 transposition deadline), says secondary employment "is generally permitted in Germany and does not have to be approved by the 'main' employer." A secondary job pursued during the main job's regular working hours "constitutes a violation of the employee's duties under his or her employment contract." Employers usually require declaration or approval of secondary employment, which the commentary calls "permissible and makes sense." That's a law firm's commentary, not a statute. Check it with German counsel.

Gateley's 2021 commentary says that where the contract is silent, "an employer could still refuse permission." It says failing to obtain consent where the contract requires it is likely to be a disciplinary matter. It also notes that each employer is responsible for ensuring an employee "does not work more than 48 hours per week under the Working Time Regulations 1998", the 48-hour average weekly limit, which workers can opt out of.

Where the contract says nothing, the argument rests on the implied term of trust and confidence. That's an argument about the facts of the case, not a rule that settles it.

Employee or contractor? Check this before anything else

In our judgment this is the first question. An employee is paid for time under your direction, so a second full-time job running during that time is a problem you can raise. A genuine contractor is paid for deliverables, and several clients is normal for one. If a contractor misses a deliverable or breaches confidentiality, the contract's acceptance, availability and conflict terms are what you work from. Whether they have other clients isn't the issue.

The bigger risk may be the reverse. If you call someone a contractor and treat them like staff (fixed hours, your tools, your management), whether they're really self-employed matters more than the second job. For the Dutch version of that question, see Wet DBA for tech teams. The rest of this article is written for employees.

What you can already see, and what needs a lawyer first

Ordinary management covers more than you might expect. Surveillance covers less.

You can look at what any manager looks at: missed or rescheduled meetings, slow responses, pull request and ticket output against the plan, work patterns in the tools you already run for everyone, feedback from colleagues, and references. You can also ask the person a plain question.

Stepping past that needs a documented purpose, a check on whether you need a data protection impact assessment (DPIA), and counsel first. That covers system logs, email or browsing review, screenshots, keystroke tools, covert monitoring, contacting the other employer, and searching social media for the second job.

The UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) says "You must document why you are monitoring workers and what you intend to do with the information you collect," and "You must be clear about your purpose and select the least intrusive means to achieve it." It requires a DPIA "before undertaking any processing likely to cause high risk." Workers have to be informed: "you must inform workers about any monitoring", apart from in very exceptional circumstances where covert monitoring is justified. On covert monitoring it says "It is unlikely that you will be able to justify covert monitoring in most usual circumstances." The ICO allows narrow exceptions, such as suspected criminal activity or gross misconduct. Counsel decides whether yours qualifies.

Two more ICO points matter for a quiet investigation. The employer "must make the personal information you collect through monitoring available to workers if they make a subject access request", unless an exemption applies, so the person can ask for what you collected. And "homeworking does not constitute personal or household processing, and so is also covered by this guidance".

This is UK guidance. We haven't sourced the Dutch rules, and German monitoring is a separate regime. Ask local counsel. On German IT review, Kliemt.HR says employers "must have significant grounds for suspicion in advance of taking any step of this type, and should proceed proportionately and with caution."

Our judgment: monitor after the suspicion, not as a fishing exercise to produce one. If the only evidence is a feeling, the ordinary-management signals are what you have. Collect more only with counsel agreeing what, why and for how long.

How to respond to a suspected second job: five steps

This is a procedure, not a legal opinion. The order is our judgment, and every step can change once counsel has seen your contract.

1. Write down what you actually know

Separate facts from inference. A fact is "missed three sprint reviews between 3 and 24 September" or "the feature promised for the 12th wasn't merged." An inference is "he must have another job." Record dates, deliverables and who noticed. Leave out speculation, and anything you got by looking somewhere you weren't entitled to. This page is what you'll hand counsel, and it stops you acting on a story.

2. Check your contract and policy

Look for exclusivity or permission clauses, an obligation to disclose other work, confidentiality and IP terms, and working-time clauses (including any 48-hour opt-out in the UK). Then check how far each reaches. Article 9 and the Dutch rule in 653a limit how much of a ban survives. A clause that goes beyond an objective ground may not be enforceable. If there's no clause at all, tell counsel in plain words.

3. Hold the conversation before any formal step

If you suspect identity fraud rather than a second job, don't hold this conversation. Follow the fake-engineer article above.

Otherwise, ask the question and give the person a chance to explain. In our judgment this comes before warnings or lawyers' letters: you may be wrong, and a plain question costs less than an accusation. Say what you've noticed, ask whether anything outside the job is affecting their availability, and write up what's said.

Timing matters in Germany. Section 626(2) of the German Civil Code (BGB) says an extraordinary termination "can only be given within two weeks," and the period starts when the person entitled to terminate learns the facts that matter ("Die Kündigung kann nur innerhalb von zwei Wochen erfolgen. Die Frist beginnt mit dem Zeitpunkt, in dem der Kündigungsberechtigte von den für die Kündigung maßgebenden Tatsachen Kenntnis erlangt"). We're flagging the rule, not applying it. Don't schedule the conversation before German counsel has said when the clock started.

4. Decide the outcome with counsel

You and counsel choose the outcome. Kliemt.HR describes German employer responses as running "from a discussion with HR to formal warnings and extraordinary dismissal". In the UK, Gateley says failing to obtain consent where the contract requires it is likely to be a disciplinary matter, which means a disciplinary process run fairly. We aren't recommending dismissal in any country, and whether it would be fair depends on the facts. Length of service changes the options, so check where the person stands first.

For the Netherlands, ask Dutch counsel which route is open to you. We haven't verified one.

5. Protect the work

Scope access and rotate secrets only as far as your existing security policy already allows. Don't invent a new regime for one person. If you suspect something closer to fraud, the heavier version lives in the fake-engineer article. Get a handover, even a rough one, and start planning the backfill. In our judgment, someone splitting their time between two employers is a departure risk, and you want your tickets documented before it happens.

Contract clauses for the next hire

This is judgment, and counsel should draft the wording. Each clause should survive Article 9 and the Dutch rule, which means aiming at harm rather than at the fact of a second job.

A duty to disclose other paid work, with a named person to disclose to.
A permission mechanism for conflicts of interest and for overlap with contracted hours, not a blanket ban where Article 9 or 653a applies.
Confidentiality and IP terms that apply to everything done under the contract, whoever else the person works for.
Availability windows: the hours the person has to be reachable, in writing.
For contractors, acceptance based on deliverables, with a defined scope. The software development agreement clauses for EU hiring are the place to start.
For UK staff, a note on the 48-hour average weekly limit and whether the person has opted out.
A monitoring notice. The ICO says you must inform workers about any monitoring, so state in the contract or policy what you check and why, and keep it proportionate.

Disclosure and conflict rules do the work, and a flat ban does not. The pillar guide, Hiring developers in Europe: legal requirements for 2026, covers the wider contract structure.

What this means for your engagement model

Decide this before the next hire, not after the next suspicion. A full-time employee relationship rests on an expectation of exclusive hours, and the law limits what you can enforce beyond hours worked to what you've written down and can justify. A contractor model is deliverable-based and assumes other clients. Pick the one that fits the role, then write the matching rules into the contract: disclosure and conflict terms in either case, availability windows for employees, acceptance criteria for contractors.

The sourced limits point the same way. Article 9 and 653a restrict a ban to what's objectively justified. Gateley treats missing required consent as likely to be a disciplinary matter. The ICO expects monitoring to be proportionate and disclosed. If your present team already has this problem, ask counsel in each country before anyone talks to the person. For the stage after that, when output is the real concern, read how to decide before probation ends.

FAQ

Is it illegal to work two full-time jobs in the UK?

There's no statutory ban. The contract governs, and Gateley's 2021 commentary says that where it's silent an employer could still refuse permission. Working the second job during paid hours is a different matter from having one, and whether a given case is a breach is for UK counsel.

Can my employer see if I have two jobs?

Not by default. Ordinary management sees output, availability and attendance. Anything beyond that, such as log review, screenshots or covert monitoring, needs a documented purpose and the least intrusive means, according to the ICO. It adds that covert monitoring is unlikely to be justified in most usual circumstances, and that a worker can make a subject access request for the data collected, unless an exemption applies.

Can I fire an engineer for working a second job?

It depends on the contract, whether the work happened in paid hours, the country and the person's length of service. Kliemt.HR lists German responses from a discussion to warnings and extraordinary dismissal, and Gateley says missing required consent in the UK is likely to be a disciplinary matter. For the Netherlands, ask Dutch counsel. Take legal advice before any dismissal step.

Can a contract ban a second job in the Netherlands or the EU?

Only partly. Directive (EU) 2019/1152, Article 9, requires Member States to stop employers prohibiting other employment outside the work schedule, though restrictions are allowed on objective grounds. Under Burgerlijk Wetboek 7:653a a clause limiting outside work is void unless objectively justified.

Is a contractor with several clients a problem?

Usually not. Several clients is normal for a genuine contractor, and your protection is the contract: deliverables, availability, confidentiality and conflict terms. A long-term "contractor" who works like staff is a status question, and that's the bigger risk.