New job - should I be concerned about this contract?

[ShineBrightLikeADiamond1]

The contract says it runs to a x date - meaning that after my 3 month probation period. It then says a permanent contract may be issued subject to performance.

I haven't had a contract like this before - does it mean my job is only temporary?

I can’t tell from your description. I assume it’s fixed term to the end of your probationary period but most say permanent and then have a caveat that they can get rid of you if you are crap. Then can get rid of you within two years anyway.

All jobs are temporary in the early stages... if you're good they'll keep you on if you're not they won't but this would be exactly the same with a so called permanent contract.

That’s very unusual sharp practice. I would definitely be concerned by that wording.

Yeah it's a bit weird but not illegal per se. Most jobs have a 3 -6 month probation period after which you are 'confirmed' in post (or similar wording), but in reality you don't have much legal protection against being sacked for 2 years after starting a new job regardless of whether you are in a probation period or not, or on a permanent contract or not. So taking a new job is always a bit of a gamble in reality.

It sounds like this 'fixed term' business is their way of expressing their probation processes but if it was me I probably would be a bit more concerned about it than I normally would be on starting a new job. At best they have got a bit muddled with their HR practice and are creating extra work for themselves with issuing of unnecessary extra contracts where a simple letter confirming probation is passed would do perfectly well (which would make me worry how they'd deal with a more complicated HR issue like a redundancy in future), and at worst they use this as a way of pulling some kind of sharp practice in the hope you won't notice e.g. if some contractual aspects of the role such as the salary, annual leave, maternity pay or whatever was particularly important to me, I would worry that they might try and take the 'issuing of the new contract' as an opportunity to change things?

But if the job is otherwise perfect I probably would give them the benefit of the doubt and just proceed with caution?