The NMW and NLW rates applicable from April 2022 are as follows:

For those aged:

23 and over: NLW rises to £9.50 per hour

21 – 22: £9.18 per hour 

18 – 20: £6.83 per hour

Under 18: £4.81 per hour

Qualifying apprentices: £4.81 per hour 

For a full list of rates and measures look at our HR and employment law fact card.  If you’d like a hardcopy, contact us and we’ll send you one (while stocks last.)

In general any costs which the employee HAS to pay to the employer during the course of their employment will count towards a reduction in the hourly rate, and if this results in a net rate of less than the NMW, it will breach NMW regs. It is illegal to count tips or service charges as a part of the NMW.

Tips, gratuities etc. cannot be used to show compliance with NMW, neither should overtime or shift allowances, benefits in kind or contractually required deductions for tools/uniform etc. (though overpayment deductions will not affect the NMW).

It is permissible to make an adjustment for accommodation, but only to a point – at the time of writing this is a maximum of £8.70 per day or £60.90 per week (April 2022). There are special rules for the treatment of working time when employees are travelling, training or on call. These complex arrangements are outside of the scope of this article and employers should contact us for further advice.

For a full list of rates and measures look at our HR and employment law fact card.  If you’d like a hardcopy, contact us and we’ll send you one (while stocks last.)

The National Minimum Wage applies to commission-based and piece workers. The worker must have earned, on average, at least the NMW for the pay reference period. The pay reference period depends on the frequency of wage payments to the worker, so for a daily paid worker it is one day, for a weekly paid worker, 1 week, a monthly paid worker, 1 month.

For a full list of rates and measures look at our HR and employment law fact card.  If you’d like a hardcopy, contact us and we’ll send you one (while stocks last.)

From April 2021 £151.97 per week. Remember that the first 6 weeks of maternity or adoption pay are paid at 90% of the employee’s average weekly earnings, and the remaining weeks are paid at the statutory rate, or 90% of the average earnings whichever is the lower.

For a full list of rates and measures look at our HR and employment law fact card.  If you’d like a hardcopy, contact us and we’ll send you one (while stocks last.)

With effect from April 2021 weekly pay for the purpose of calculating redundancy pay is £544 per week (or actual contractual earnings if lower). 

Employees must have 2 years continuous service to qualify for a statutory redundancy payment.

Statutory redundancy entitlement varies by age and service as follows:

• half a week’s pay for each complete year of employment below the age of 22
• one week’s pay for each full year between 22 and 40
• one and a half week’s pay for each full year worked at 41 years or older.

A maximum of 20 year’s service is taken into account when calculating statutory redundancy pay, so the maximum SRP payment would be 20 X 1.5 X 544 = £16,320.

Regular commission should be included in a week’s pay, but overtime pay is not unless it is contractually required. If earnings vary each week, an average of the 12-week period leading up to the redundancy is used.

The first £30K of redundancy pay can be paid free of tax, but notice pay is taxable and subject to normal deductions.

For a full list of rates and measures look at our HR and employment law fact card.  If you’d like a hardcopy, contact us and we’ll send you one (while stocks last.)

From April 2021 £96.35 per week.

For a full list of rates and measures look at our HR and employment law fact card.  If you’d like a hardcopy, contact us and we’ll send you one (while stocks last.)

You used to be able to, but in 2014 the government removed the ability for employers to claim back SSP.

For a full list of rates and measures look at our HR and employment law fact card.  If you’d like a hardcopy, contact us and we’ll send you one (while stocks last.)

Statutory guarantee pay (SGP) is an amount payable to employees who are not provided with work by their employer (on a day they would usually work under their contract) in specific circumstances.

SGP is usually used for employees being placed on lay-off or short-time working.

SGP must be paid to employees for up to a weeks’ work (max 5 days, pro rata for part time employees) in a 3 month period. It applies to employees with normal contractual working hours and excludes casual workers. An employee must have a month’s service to qualify. The employer might not be able to provide work for example because of a natural event (heavy snow or floods) or a power cut etc. Normally an ‘occurrence’ of some kind or other is required to generate the right to guarantee payments.

As of April 2022, guarantee payments are limited to £31 per day for 5 days in any 3 month period, so a maximum of £150.00. Guarantee pay should be expressly permitted by the worker’s contract of employment.

For a full list of rates and measures look at our HR and employment law fact card.  If you’d like a hardcopy, contact us and we’ll send you one (while stocks last.)