What changed for UK pay in April 2026

Sick pay was rewritten, and it is the biggest change

Three things happened to Statutory Sick Pay on 6 April 2026, under the Employment Rights Act 2025. Any advice written before then is wrong on all three.

• Waiting days are gone. SSP is paid from the first day of sickness. It used to start on day four, with the first three unpaid.
• The earnings floor is gone. There is no lower earnings limit for SSP any more, so everyone qualifies whatever they earn. Around 1.3 million low-paid employees previously got nothing at all.
• There is a percentage now. SSP is the lower of £123.25 a week or 80% of your average weekly earnings. It used to be a flat rate.

Paternity and parental leave became day-one rights

Also from 6 April, and easy to miss because the sick pay change took all the attention:

• Paternity leave is now a day-one right. You can give notice from your first day in a job.
• Ordinary parental leave is now a day-one right too. It previously needed a year's service.
• The restriction on taking paternity leave after shared parental leave was removed.
• Up to 52 weeks of unpaid bereaved partner's paternity leave was introduced.

If you changed jobs recently and assumed you had to wait, that assumption is now out of date.

The money went up in three places

Minimum wage, from 1 April. Note the date: minimum wage changes on 1 April, not with the tax year on the 6th.

• 21 and over: £12.71 an hour
• 18 to 20: £10.85
• Under 18 and apprentices: £8.00

Mileage, from 6 April. The approved rate for cars and vans rose from 45p to 55p for the first 10,000 business miles, after fourteen years stuck at 45p. Above 10,000 miles it stays 25p. Motorcycles did not move from 24p, and bicycles did not move from 20p, so the gap between driving and riding widened sharply. Compare a journey's real fuel cost against what you can claim with the fuel cost calculator.

Dividend tax, from 6 April. The basic rate went from 8.75% to 10.75% and the higher rate from 33.75% to 35.75%. The additional rate stayed at 39.35% and the £500 allowance did not move. Two points on £30,000 of dividends is £600 a year, which narrows the gap between paying yourself in salary and dividends without closing it. The dividend tax calculator uses the new rates.

Three obligations that landed on employers

Less discussed, and all from 6 April:

• Holiday records must be kept for six years or more. If you run payroll, this one has teeth, and it applies to annual leave and holiday pay records alike.
• Collective redundancy penalties doubled. The maximum protective award for failing to consult went from 90 days' pay to 180 days' pay per affected employee.
• Whistleblowing widened. Disclosing sexual harassment is now a qualifying disclosure, which brings protection from detriment and unfair dismissal.

The Fair Work Agency was also established, on 7 April 2026.

Two things people think changed and have not

This is where a lot of coverage went wrong, so it is worth being precise.

Unfair dismissal still needs two years' service. The reduction to six months, and the removal of the cap on compensatory awards, is scheduled for January 2027. It did not happen in April.

Fire and rehire is not automatically unfair yet. Dismissing someone and rehiring them on worse terms becoming automatically unfair in most cases is also a January 2027 change, not an April 2026 one. Several summaries published in the spring listed it under April.

What is still to come

The Act phases in over several years, so more is queued. Dates below are as published, and the 2027 detail is still subject to government consultation, so treat the later ones as intended rather than certain.

October 2026:

• Employment tribunal claim time limits rise from 3 months to 6
• Employers become liable for third-party harassment unless they took all reasonable steps to prevent it, and the sexual harassment standard rises from "reasonable steps" to "all reasonable steps"
• Employers must consult workers before setting a tipping policy, and review it every three years
• Several trade union changes, including a duty to tell workers about union rights, and workplace access for unions
• Protection from detriment for taking industrial action

1 January 2027: the two covered above, unfair dismissal protection from six months and fire and rehire becoming automatically unfair, plus removal of the cap on compensatory awards.

Later in 2027: bereavement leave, zero-hours protections, shift notice and compensation, changes to flexible working, restrictions on non-disclosure agreements, and mandatory gender pay gap and menopause action plans. Most of these are still being consulted on.

What to check if something looks wrong

If a payslip, a payroll system or a template disagrees with what you expected this year, the odds are it is one of these:

• Sick pay calculated with waiting days, or refused on an earnings limit that no longer exists
• Mileage still reimbursed at 45p
• Dividend tax worked out at 8.75% or 33.75%
• Paternity leave refused for lack of service

Every current figure is on the UK statutory rates page, each one linked to its gov.uk source and dated.