“Obviously I never know what I’m going to be paid each week,” says Jessica Burns, a mother of three young children from Salford. Burns, who is 30, enjoys her job at a local branch of the supermarket Iceland, which she can walk to in half an hour. “I do pretty much everything,” she says. “I like the variation of going to work and having different things to do. I’m not one of those people who could just sit on the till all day.” But her hours are highly variable, which means that her pay is too, and so are the benefits she is entitled to. “I get my rota every two weeks, on a Tuesday,” Burns explains. “Last week I did two shifts of only four hours, so that’s eight hours. This week, I’ve had four shifts.” Burns is not on a zero-hours contract. The supermarket guarantees her seven and a half hours each week, and she has worked there for four years. But she finds the variability difficult to manage. “I get my wage slip on a Tuesday from work. I tend to do meals for the week. I don’t do a monthly shop any more. And then when I get my UC [universal credit] statement on the 12th of the month, then I work out the big bills and what is actually going to be left,” she says. “UC is a total mystery to me.” Burns was previously a mental health support worker, but when she had her middle child, who is seven and is autistic, she had to look for something more flexible. “The sort of job wouldn’t work, that I love doing. I’ve got all the qualifications to do it,” she says. During working hours, Burns needs childcare for her youngest child, who is 11 months old, but that can be hard to arrange when her hours change at short notice. “I have to book the days for the month, and sometimes I book her in and then I’m not in work,” she says, adding that she can claim most of the cost back, but not until the following month.