No, because as I keep saying, this kind of issue almost never goes to court in the UK because they know that a company needs to demonstrate a severe financial loss to override the employee's right to work for a company of their choosing. So the result is that in practice, we don't have non-compete agreements, and in almost every case where we do, they're not enforced.
The examples that were mentioned elsewhere in the thread, of restaurants in the US using non-competes to prevent their staff leaving to work for a competitor simply do not exist in the UK, because if a company did try to pursue such a case, it would be laughed out of court.
In the very few cases where somebody does steal trade secrets, then they can expect to get taken to court. This very rarely happens, and with a presumption of innocence, requires significant proof that this has occurred. It simply isn't something that a normal person, conducting themselves professionally needs to worry about.
> Hopefully you can see yourself how non-competes make it possible for people to switch jobs and simplify life for everyone.
Quite the opposite. How does a non-compete help a waitress paid $5/h switch jobs when the restaurant across the road pays $6/h, but she can't work there without surviving several months without pay? How does a non-compete help an accountant switch jobs? How does a non-compete help a programmer switch jobs? Simply, it doesn't. Whatever the profession, a non-compete does not help the employee at all. It only helps the employer keep wages lower, by restricting their employees ability to move to a better paid job.
The only case where non-competes are genuinely useful to a company, other than for restricting employees seeking better paid jobs elsewhere, is when an employee has access to sensitive company information and actively uses that information at a new company. A non-compete period would just slow that down, not eliminate it, and there are other legal ways of handling that situation should it occur.
