UK employment law: Leave & working time changes in 2025
UK employment law is changing in 2025 – here are the key things to know.
Published in October 2024, the Employment Rights Bill contains 28 reforms aimed at increasing pay, productivity, and job security – and it marks the first step in the government’s delivery of its Plan to Make Work Pay.
Many of these reforms are expected to come into force in 2026 and beyond, but other changes to UK employment law are due to be enacted from April 2025, so what changes can employers expect to see this year?
Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023
Expected to come into effect from April 2025, this act will give parents up to 12 weeks of paid leave, if they have babies who are admitted to hospital up to the age of 28 days and have a continuous stay of 7 days or more.
The act will provide employees with a minimum entitlement of one week, and will be in addition to other maternity, paternity and shared parental leave entitlements.
This new entitlement will apply to employees who have been employed for at least 26 weeks prior to the leave being requested, and are earning at least £123 per week (this is the same criteria for maternity pay entitlement). Neonatal Care Leave must also be taken within the first 68 weeks of the baby’s birth.
Statutory payments increase
From April 2025, several statutory payments will increase.
This includes statutory sick pay (SSP), which will increase from £116.75 to £118.75, with a qualifying threshold of £125 per week. Under the proposed Employment Rights Bill, it’s possible that SSP will become payable from the first day of being ill (currently from the fourth day), but this is unlikely to come into force this year.
Other statutory payments, including maternity pay, maternity allowance, paternity pay, shared parental pay, adoption pay, and bereavement pay will increase from £184.03 to £187.19 per week.
The weekly qualifying threshold for all the above payments will increase from £123 to £125, except for maternity allowance, which will remain at £30 per week.
Check out our maternity leave and pay calculator, and our guide to UK paternity leave and pay blog.
National Insurance increase for employers
From April 2025, 4 significant changes will be made to employer national insurance contributions (NICs).
The secondary Class 1 National Insurance threshold (for employers) will be lowered from £9,100 to £5,000 per year, while the main rate of secondary Class 1 National Insurance contributions will increase from 13.8% to 15%. The rates for Class 1A and Class 1B contributions will also increase accordingly.
Employment allowance will now become available to all employers, removing the current restriction applied to employers with an annual employer NICs liability of less than £100,000. The maximum amount employers can save through the allowance will also increase from £5,000 to £10,500.
National Minimum Wage increase
From 1st April 2025, the national minimum wage will increase by £0.77 to £12.21 an hour. For 18-20 year olds, it will increase by £1.40 to £10.00 per hour, and for 16-17 year olds it will increase by £1.15 to £7.55 per hour.
Statutory Code of Practice
It has been reported that the government plans to introduce a Statutory Code of Practice as part of its Next Steps to Make Work Pay, which will prevent employees from being contacted outside of working hours, except in exceptional circumstances. This follows the government’s initial aim to make sure that remote work does not turn homes into ’24/7 offices’ and the possible need for ‘right to switch off’ legislation.
The mention of any Right to Disconnect or Right to Switch Off legislation was absent from the government’s Employment Rights Bill, however a statutory code of practice would provide employers and employees with a clear framework which organisations can use to develop best practice approaches that suit their operations and their workers.
Further changes for 2026 and beyond
As mentioned, many of the 28 reforms proposed in the Employment Rights Bill are unlikely to come into effect until at least 2026. These include day 1 rights to paternity leave, parental leave and bereavement leave, as well as the removal of the 2-year qualifying period for protection from unfair dismissal.
From April 2024, employees were given the right to request flexible working from day 1 of their employment. Under the Employment Rights Bill, this day 1 right is due to be strengthened, by requiring employers to explain the grounds on which they’ve denied a request.
How edays can help
For organisations looking to manage changes to employee leave, flexible working and sickness, edays provides one platform to do it all. Need to create a new type of leave? Use our custom leave types to create any new statutory entitlements, or complementary allowances that you offer.
Manage sickness absence with ease, recording the duration and reason for an employee’s absence, and integrate your data with other HR and payroll software.
Record absence and leave in either days and hours, for even more granular detail.
Track working hours through timesheets, clocking in and out, and our Working Locations functionality, for a clearer picture of where, when, and how your employees are working.
