Fyi: I am in UK.
I have been at this company approaching five months, on a 2-year fixed term contract. My contract only mentions that a notice period of 3 months comes into effect once I have completed this fixed term. There is no mention of a notice period if an employee wishes to terminate the fixed term early.
Anyway, I was planning on staying in this job for at least a year but I became very unhappy and stressed. So, I started looking for a new job. I got an offer on Thursday, which I accepted!
Today, I did the 'decent' thing of giving my manager the heads up that I am going to be handing in my 4-weeks notice (even though I am not contractually obliged to). They then proceeded to tell me that I have no right to terminate the fixed term early, that I cannot unilaterally leave the job. This made me very upset.
In the UK, employment law states that you cannot stop an employee leaving.
Instead, I sent an official resignation email in which I reduced my notice from 4 to 2 weeks. If you are gonna intimidate me into staying in a job, then you do not deserve anything.