UK employment compliance

On 6 April 2026 the statutory sick pay regime changed in two ways at once. Sections 10 to 13 of the Employment Rights Act 2025 commenced, removing the three waiting days and taking the lower earnings limit out of the eligibility test entirely — so SSP is now payable from the first qualifying day, to workers who previously earned too little to qualify at all. The rate became the lower of a flat weekly figure and 80% of the employee's normal weekly earnings under SSCBA 1992 s.157(1). That 80% branch is a cap-selection test, not a floor: an employee on £110 a week gets £88.00, not the flat rate. And because the commencement regulations carry three separate transitional regimes for illness that straddles 6 April 2026, the population most likely to be miscalculated is the one that was already off sick before the reform landed.

Two more dates sit ahead of you. On 1 January 2027 the qualifying period for unfair dismissal drops from two years to six months, and the cap on the compensatory award goes. And nothing in UK law fixes a holiday year to a calendar date — WTR reg 13(3) anchors each worker's leave year to the date in their contract, or failing that to the anniversary of their start date, which is why holiday-year boundaries appear nowhere in the calendar below and have to be tracked per person instead.