How much you get paid during maternity leave – and how to get extra company perks
Pregnancy is often a time of nerves and excitement while you wait for your new arrival. While work may be the last thing on your mind, making sure you take full advantage of your maternity rights is crucial.
The rules around maternity leave and pay can differ between employers, but as a minimum all employees are entitled to leave that is provided for in law. Furthermore, the law also makes provisions for those who are adopting or having a child through surrogacy.
How these rights interact with any additional employee benefits at your workplace will determine what leave you are entitled to take, and what pay you can expect during the period.
Employers must also abide by legal protections to ensure they don’t discriminate against those on maternity leave.
Here, Telegraph Money takes you through everything you need to know about taking time off when having a baby. Jump to:
What is maternity leave?
Under law, mothers are entitled to take up to one year of maternity leave from their job, split into 26 weeks of ordinary maternity leave followed by 26 weeks of additional maternity leave.
While you don’t have to take the full 52 weeks, you must take at least two weeks off after you have your baby, or at least four weeks if you work in a factory.
The law also provides for a new parent who has adopted or opted for surrogacy.
Maternity leave can start up to 11 weeks before your due date. If your baby comes early or you are off work due to a pregnancy-related issue up to four weeks before the due date, your leave will start automatically from that date.
What are your legal rights to maternity pay?
The main, and probably most important question, is what pay you’re legally entitled to during your time off.
Statutory maternity pay lasts for 39 weeks, but it tapers off during that time. While you’re entitled to maternity leave regardless of how long you’ve worked at your employer, they’re only required to fund your maternity pay if you’ve been employed with them for at least 26 weeks. Some employers may offer to pay before this time, but they aren’t legally obliged to.
If you’re not eligible to claim maternity pay from your employer you may need to claim maternity allowance instead, which is paid at the same rate as statutory maternity pay. To be eligible, you must have been employed for at least 26 weeks or the 66 weeks before your baby’s due date, earning at least £30 a week during at least 13 weeks – but they don’t have to be consecutive.
Under the Maternity and Parental Leave Regulations, for the first six weeks of your leave you get 90pc of your gross average pay – before tax. However, you will still pay tax and National Insurance on the pay you receive.
Your average pay calculation is based on what you earn when you are around 18-26 weeks pregnant.
For those on zero-hours contracts it will be calculated using what you earned in that timeframe. Likewise for those working on a commission basis, commissions are considered ‘earnings’ for the period and used to work out maternity pay. This is the same for any overtime paid during that window of time.
“A person could, I suppose, increase work during that period to increase the value of statutory maternity pay,” said Mr Walters. “Although for someone earning above the statutory minimum entitlement that would only affect the first few weeks of maternity leave when in receipt of 90pc of normal earnings. And it’s an unattractive proposition for a pregnant employee to have to ramp up work in that way.”
During your maternity leave your pay will come from your employer as normal, but they can usually claim over 90pc of these payments back from HM Revenue and Customs.
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After the first six weeks you will receive £172.48 a week or 90pc of your weekly earnings, whichever is lower. This will be paid for another 33 weeks. Of course, this is just the statutory amount – your employer may have a more generous scheme.
Some employers offer full pay for a number of weeks, rather than the reduced legal requirement, meaning that new parents can take time off without a hit to their finances.
For example, Aviva offers its UK employees 12 months’ parental leave, with six months at full basic pay. The insurer also offers up to one year of leave, of which 26 weeks is at full basic pay, for adoption and surrogacy.
However, companies can impose thresholds longer than the statutory requirement for how long you need to have worked at the company before you can take advantage of their more generous policy.
If you’re not sure what your employer’s policy is, or you’re thinking of moving jobs at a similar time as starting a family, then you should contact your employer’s HR department.
Sometimes this information is available if the company has a recruitment section on its website.
What are your rights if you are adopting?
Statutory adoption leave is similar to maternity leave, explains James Walters, managing associate at law firm Lewis Silkin. If they meet qualifying conditions, the adopter has the right to 52 weeks’ leave and 39 weeks’ pay.
“An adopting couple must choose which of them will be entitled to adoption leave and pay (they become the ‘primary’ adopter) and they must notify their employer, so the employer can administer [the benefits],” said Mr Walters.
Rights are also the same for the second adoptive parent. “The primary adopter’s partner has the same right to two weeks’ paternity leave and pay as a birth mother’s partner, and adoptive parents can also make use of the shared parental leave scheme,” Mr Walters added.
How does shared parental leave work?
Shared parental leave rules mean you can split 50 weeks of leave (a year minus the two weeks the birth mother must take off work) – 37 of which are paid – between you and your partner.
The partner who gave birth can choose to end their leave before the maximum period and give the remaining time to their partner to take off. They will receive shared parental pay during this time.
For example, the birth parent could stop their maternity pay after 25 weeks and return to work. For the remaining 12 weeks, the couple can claim shared parental pay – if the other parent chose to take three months off work.
These periods can be split into blocks, with a parent returning to work in between, or taken in one go.
Parents can also take time off together and be paid at the same time, despite the common misconception that this is not possible. It is allowed under the statutory scheme, although it is worth checking how your employer’s scheme works.
The rules may be different if you have adopted or had a baby via surrogacy.
“In a surrogacy arrangement, only the birth mother is entitled to maternity leave and pay. However, paid adoption leave (and paternity leave and shared parental leave) is available to the intended parent,” said Mr Walters.
Do you get paid maternity leave if you are self-employed?
Being self-employed does make maternity leave slightly more complicated, but you still have rights and options for pay while you’re not working.
While you don’t have a right to statutory maternity leave, if you are registered as self-employed with HMRC you can claim up to 39 weeks of maternity pay. This is known as the maternity allowance. It’s paid through the Jobcentre so that you can take time off to be with your baby.
Maternity allowance is between £27 to £172.48 a week.
However, you need to have been self-employed for at least 26 of the 66 weeks prior to having a baby and making National Insurance contributions. The lower rate is for those who have paid less than 13 weeks of Class 2 National Insurance contributions during this time, or if you are the partner of a self-employed person and you help in their business without being paid.
You can apply for the allowance once you are at least 26 weeks pregnant, using a Mat B1 form. You can ask your GP or nurse for one of these after your 20-week scan.
You might also be eligible for maternity allowance if you’ve recently stopped working.
If you are unsure whether or not you are eligible for the payment, it is generally advised to submit an application and the Department for Work and Pensions will make a decision. How much you are paid will depend predominantly on your National Insurance contributions while being self-employed.
Should you save up for maternity leave?
Saving and budgeting for maternity leave is an important step to ensure you aren’t caught out by receiving reduced pay.
The first step is to review your current finances, make a note of essential expenses and those that you can reduce or cut all together.
At this point, MoneyHelper, advises having a frank conversation with your partner about money. If one or both of you are earning less, or not at all, during the leave period it will likely change how you make financial decisions.
With this in mind, it could be worth starting a savings pot as soon as possible to help cover the loss of earnings when the time comes.
It is also worth looking to see whether you are entitled to any support, such as child benefit that could help boost your income when the baby arrives.
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How does maternity leave affect your pension?
While you’re on maternity leave, your employer should continue making contributions into your workplace pension, assuming you’re receiving maternity pay. The statutory length of time for them to do this is 39 weeks, but some opt to pay for longer.
Your own contributions will likely decrease, as they are based on a proportion of your maternity pay, not your full salary.
Taking maternity leave, and the increased chance of working part-time after having children, has a significant impact on women’s pension savings. Government data on the gender pension gap reveals a widening gap between pension wealth held by men and women, once women enter their 40s.
For women aged 45-49, the gap is 47pc, before dropping to 35pc by the time women reach the age of 55.
However, there are things you can do to minimise the effect maternity leave has on your savings.
Alice Guy, head of pensions and savings at Interactive Investor said: “It’s important to keep an eye on your pension wealth, even if you take time out from the workplace. If you’re planning to reduce your hours or take time out from the workplace, then it’s worth seeing if you can afford to make more than the minimum pension contributions while you’re still working full time.
“Another option, if you can afford it, is to continue to make pension payments as a non-earner. You’re allowed to pay up to £2,880 into your pension as a non-earner and still receive a tax-relief top up as if you were a taxpayer.”
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What happens when you return to work?
While you’re on maternity leave your job is protected, and you are entitled to return to the same role after ordinary maternity leave and the same conditions. However, you do need to give your employer eight weeks’ notice before returning to work if you are only taking 26 weeks, rather than the full year.
However, this changes when you take additional maternity leave. At this point you are entitled to your role back, unless it is “not reasonably practical” for your employer. At this point they need to offer you an alternative role on similar terms.
In this scenario, Shazia Shah, senior associate at law firm Irwin Mitchell, said you should scrutinise the new role carefully and shouldn’t assume it is on the same terms and conditions as your previous position.
“I have taken cases to tribunal on whether it is an appropriate role or not,” she said.
The key point is that you cannot be discriminated against for being on maternity leave. This means that if a pay review takes place while you’re off you are entitled to the same consideration as all other employees.
Likewise, if there is the chance for promotion or a new job opening, your employer must let you know so you can put yourself forward. They should also let you know about any training or similar opportunities that take place while you are off.
If you are in line for a performance-based bonus, you should be included in the process with the decision based on your performance while you were at work.
A common question Ms Shah gets asked by clients is whether they can lose their job while on maternity leave.
“Sometimes I think there is a misconception that people have additional protection while on maternity leave, but that isn’t the case,” she said.
You can be let go – either dismissed or made redundant – during maternity leave as long as the leave isn’t the reason for you losing your job. The dismissal cannot be based on criteria that would be discriminatory as a result of your leave. For example, lack of attendance could not be a factor while you are away.
You are able to leave your job while on maternity leave, the same as any employee, and will be subject to your contractual notice period. However, if your company offers enhanced maternity pay above your legal entitlement, you may have to repay some of it.
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What happens to your holiday allowance while you are on maternity leave?
You still accrue holiday while you are on maternity leave, and should also be able to claim back any bank holidays that occurred during the leave.
It is common practice for employers to allow you to carry unused leave to the following year, rather than you losing it.
Some employees may choose to either extend their maternity leave by adding holiday onto the end of the maternity period, or using holiday leave to reduce the amount of time they’re receiving reduced pay, as you should be paid in full for holiday days.
Keep-in-touch days and going back to work
It is good practice for employers to be in contact with employees while they are away on maternity leave, and some managers may want to agree what you would consider “reasonable contact” before going on leave.
However, any work you do – including training and meetings – has to be during keep-in-touch days. Anyone on maternity leave has the option to take up to 10 keep-in-touch days.
These must be agreed with your employer in advance, as they do not have to give them to you, but can be a helpful way to ensure you don’t miss out on training or development opportunities during your time off.
Your rate of pay for those days is also at their discretion, although the time is commonly paid at your normal salary.
When the time comes to go back to work, you may want to speak to your employer about agreeing on a more flexible working arrangement, or even going part-time. You can do this while staying in your role by making a statutory flexible working request.
The Working Families charity recommends asking for any changes as soon as possible, as you do not have a right to them and it may involve a negotiation.
What happens if you miscarry or your baby is stillborn?
In the awful circumstance that you miscarry, time taken off work will likely be covered under normal sick-leave as a pregnancy related illness, and you will be entitled to time off under your company’s sickness policy.
If you need additional time off for bereavement or other needs, you can discuss this with your employer. Your organisation may have a policy that outlines anything they can offer in terms of flexible working and adjustments.
If you have a stillbirth or your baby dies after birth, you are entitled to take full maternity leave. Likewise, a partner is still entitled to statutory paternity leave after a stillbirth or death.
However, shared parental leave may not be available under these circumstances.
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