UK: April 2025 HR checklist

This April sees new neonatal care rights coming into force along with the usual annual uplift to employment rates and limits to reflect inflation:    

Changes to family leave rights

• Parliament has approved the regulations implementing statutory neonatal care leave and pay with effect from 6 April 2025. See our post here for more detail. Some employers may wish to enhance the entitlement, for example to remove the 12 week cap on leave, enhance pay or remove some of the complexity around notice requirements and how leave can be taken.  Please do get in touch with your usual HSF contact if you would like assistance drafting a neonatal care leave policy.
• The additional amount which small employers can recover for employees on maternity leave increases from 3% to 8.5% of statutory maternity payments made with effect from 6 April 2025. 

Changes to caps on tribunal compensation, statutory benefits and minimum wage

• From 6 April 2025, the cap on the unfair dismissal compensatory award increases from £115,115 to £118,223 and the cap on weekly pay (used to calculate the unfair dismissal basic award and statutory redundancy pay) increases from £700 to £719. This gives a maximum unfair dismissal award of £139,793 (or, if less, 12 months’ pay).
• The bands for injury to feelings awards have also been increased for claims presented on or after 6 April 2025;  the lowest band starts at £1,200, the middle band at £12,100, and the highest band starts at £36,400 with a cap of £60,700 (save in exceptional cases).
• From 6 April 2025 the weekly rate of statutory sick pay increases to £118.75 (from £116.75) and the weekly flat rate of statutory maternity, paternity, adoption, shared parental, parental bereavement and neonatal care pay increases to £187.18 (from £184.03).
• The national minimum wage rates increase from 1 April 2025. Workers of 21 years and older will be entitled to be paid a minimum national living wage of £12.21 per hour (previously £11.44 per hour); the rate for those aged 18 to 20 increases to £10 per hour.

Changes to NICs

From 6 April 2025 employer NICs increase from 13.8% to 15% of employee earnings. The threshold at which employers start paying employer NICs on a worker's earnings decreases from £9,100 to £5,000 per year.