Sick pay changed on 6 April 2026 — no waiting days, no minimum earnings, and 80% of pay for lower earners. See what you are actually owed.
Sick pay is worked out from your average weekly earnings over the eight weeks before you went off.
These are your “qualifying days”. Sick pay is a weekly amount divided across them, so working fewer days means a higher daily rate.
Count only the days you would have worked. Statutory Sick Pay now starts on the first full day.
Weeks at full pay, then weeks at half pay. Leave both at 0 if you only get the statutory minimum. Check your contract — company schemes are common and usually include SSP rather than sitting on top of it.
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Statutory Sick Pay is £123.25 a week or 80% of your average weekly earnings, whichever is lower, for up to 28 weeks. It is paid only for qualifying days — the days you would normally have worked — so the weekly figure is divided across them. On a five-day week that is £24.65 a day; on a three-day week the same weekly amount becomes £41.08 a day.
What makes this worth recalculating is that the rules changed materially on 6 April 2026, and a great many calculators and HR handbooks have not caught up.
Until April 2026 the first three qualifying days of any sickness absence were unpaid. You had to be off for four days before a penny arrived, which meant most short illnesses attracted no sick pay at all. The Employment Rights Act 2025 abolished waiting days: sick pay now runs from your first full day off. On typical earnings that is about £74 per absence — and unlike a one-off, it repeats every time you are ill.
There used to be a Lower Earnings Limit of roughly £125 a week. Earn less and you got nothing — no sick pay whatsoever, however long you were ill. That excluded around 1.3 million employees, overwhelmingly part-time and disproportionately women. That test has been abolished. If you are an employee and ill for at least one full working day, you now qualify regardless of what you earn.
In its place came the 80% rule. Sick pay is the lower of the flat £123.25 or 80% of your average weekly earnings, so someone on £150 a week receives £120 rather than nothing, and nobody receives more in sick pay than they earn at work. Between them these two changes are expected to cost employers around £450 million a year, which is a reasonable measure of how much was previously not being paid.
Many employers pay company sick pay well above the statutory floor — a period at full pay followed by a period at half pay. Two details catch people out. Company schemes almost always include Statutory Sick Pay rather than paying it on top, so full pay means full pay and no more. And entitlement is frequently measured over a rolling twelve months, so an absence earlier in the year can quietly reduce what is left.
Sick pay counts as earnings, so income tax and National Insurance apply — though at £123.25 a week, about £6,409 a year, it sits so far below both thresholds that neither usually bites. If you are off for a long stretch, the drop in income normally means PAYE has over-deducted earlier in the year and the correction comes back through payroll. You need a fit note only after seven consecutive days, weekends included, and it can come from a nurse, pharmacist or physiotherapist as well as a GP. If an employer refuses to pay, HMRC’s Statutory Payment Dispute Team will decide — free, and with no need for a solicitor.
It is £123.25 a week or 80% of your average weekly earnings, whichever is lower, for up to 28 weeks. The 80% element is new: sick pay used to be a flat amount for everybody, which meant part-time and low-paid staff could receive more than they normally earned, while everyone else got a small fixed sum. Now anyone earning under about £154 a week gets 80% of their actual pay instead of the flat rate.
No — and this is the biggest change in years. Until 6 April 2026 the first three qualifying days of any sickness absence were waiting days and went completely unpaid. The Employment Rights Act 2025 abolished them, so Statutory Sick Pay now starts on your first full day off. On typical earnings that is worth about £74 on every absence, and it repeats each time you are ill rather than once a year.
Not any more. There used to be a Lower Earnings Limit of around £125 a week, and anyone below it got no sick pay at all — roughly 1.3 million people, mostly part-time and disproportionately women. That test was abolished on 6 April 2026. If you are an employee and you are ill for at least one full working day, you qualify, whatever you earn.
Sick pay is a weekly figure divided across your qualifying days — the days you normally work. On a five-day week the £123.25 becomes £24.65 a day; on a three-day week the same £123.25 becomes £41.08 a day. You are only paid for days you would have worked, so the weekly amount does not change, but the daily rate does.
28 weeks for any one period of sickness. Absences separated by eight weeks or less are treated as linked and count towards the same 28 weeks. When you are approaching the end, your employer must give you form SSP1, which is what you use to claim Universal Credit or Employment and Support Allowance instead.
Many contracts pay above the statutory minimum — a period at full pay, then a period at half pay. Two things are worth knowing. First, company schemes almost always include Statutory Sick Pay rather than adding to it, so full pay means full pay, not full pay plus £123.25. Second, entitlement is often on a rolling 12 months rather than a fixed year, so a previous absence can reduce what is left. Check the contract or staff handbook rather than assuming.
Only after seven consecutive days off, including non-working days and weekends. For anything shorter you self-certify, usually on your employer’s own form. Fit notes can be issued by GPs, nurses, occupational therapists, pharmacists and physiotherapists, not just doctors, and they can say “may be fit for work” with suggested adjustments rather than simply signing you off.
Yes. Statutory Sick Pay counts as earnings, so income tax and National Insurance apply exactly as they would to salary. In practice the amounts are so far below the thresholds — £123.25 a week is about £6,409 a year, roughly half the Personal Allowance — that most people on sick pay alone pay neither. If you are off for part of the year, the drop in income often means too much tax has already been deducted, and PAYE usually refunds it automatically through payroll.
Usually yes. Sick pay depends on being classed as an employee and having done some work for the employer — not on a minimum number of hours. The removal of the earnings floor in April 2026 made this considerably more accessible for irregular workers, and average weekly earnings are worked out over the previous eight weeks. People with less than eight weeks of earnings still qualify.
You are not expected to. Sick pay is a floor, not an income replacement. Check whether you can claim Universal Credit alongside it, whether you have income protection through work or a policy of your own, and whether any loan or credit card carries payment protection. If bills are becoming unmanageable, StepChange and National Debtline both give free debt advice, and our debt payoff calculator may help you work out priorities.
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If your employer will not pay sick pay you believe you are owed, you can ask HMRC’s Statutory Payment Dispute Team to decide — there is no tribunal fee and no need for a solicitor.
If a long absence is making the bills unmanageable, work out which debts to tackle first.
