Understanding UK Sick Pay: Your Rights Explained

Sick pay rules changed meaningfully from April 2026, and between the statutory minimum, company schemes that vary enormously between employers, and different rules again for the self-employed, it is easy to be unsure what you are actually entitled to. Our sick pay calculator works out an estimate for your specific situation, and this guide explains the rules behind it.

Statutory Sick Pay basics

Statutory Sick Pay is the legal minimum amount most employees and eligible agency workers must be paid by their employer during sickness absence. From 6 April 2026, the rate is the lower of £123.25 a week or 80% of your average weekly earnings, paid for up to 28 weeks within a single period of incapacity for work. This followed reforms under the Employment Rights Act 2025, which also removed the old Lower Earnings Limit that used to exclude the lowest-paid workers from SSP entirely.

To qualify, you generally need to be classed as an employee or eligible agency worker, be genuinely unable to work due to illness, and follow your employer's usual process for reporting sickness. Both SSP and any additional company sick pay count as normal earnings, so Income Tax and National Insurance are still deducted through PAYE in the usual way, exactly as our take-home pay calculator assumes for any other salary. If sickness reduces your hours rather than stopping work entirely, our take-home pay calculator can also model a reduced salary figure directly.

When SSP starts and ends

Before April 2026, SSP only started from the fourth qualifying day of sickness, meaning the first 3 days were typically unpaid unless your employer chose to pay them anyway. From 6 April 2026, that waiting period was removed entirely, so SSP is now payable from the very first day of a qualifying sickness absence.

SSP runs for a maximum of 28 weeks within what is called a period of incapacity for work. Separate periods of sickness that are 8 weeks or less apart are usually linked together and treated as one continuous period for the purposes of this 28-week limit, rather than each restarting a fresh entitlement. Once the 28 weeks are used up, your employer is not required to pay any more SSP, though an enhanced company scheme may continue separately if you have one.

Company sick pay schemes

Many employers, particularly larger organisations in the public sector, finance and similar industries, offer occupational or company sick pay schemes on top of the statutory minimum, often structured as full pay for a set number of weeks, followed by half pay for a further period, before dropping to SSP only. Smaller employers are more likely to offer SSP only, since there is no general legal requirement to pay more.

It is worth reading your contract or staff handbook carefully, since company schemes vary enormously in generosity and structure, and some explicitly state that SSP is included within the company figure rather than paid on top of it as an extra amount. Some schemes also reset annually, while others track sickness over a rolling period, which affects how much cover you have left if you have already had time off sick earlier in the year. Our sick pay calculator lets you model full pay, half pay or statutory-only schemes to see how the total compares.

Self-employed and sick pay

Self-employed people are not entitled to SSP under any circumstances, regardless of how long they have been trading or how much National Insurance they have paid. This is one of the more significant trade-offs of self-employment compared with being an employee, alongside the lack of paid holiday, and it is worth planning for specifically rather than discovering it during an unexpected illness. Our self-employed tax guide covers the wider trade-offs of self-employment in more detail.

New Style Employment and Support Allowance is generally the main state support available to self-employed people who become unable to work due to illness, based on your Class 2 National Insurance contributions record rather than your employment status. Some self-employed people also take out income protection insurance, which pays a regular income during illness in exchange for a premium, as a private alternative to the sick pay an employee would get automatically. Our self-employed tax calculator can help you understand your overall tax position if you are weighing up self-employment against staying employed partly because of this gap, and our self-employed tax guide covers Income Tax and National Insurance for the self-employed in full.

Building a cash buffer specifically for periods without SSP is one of the most practical steps a self-employed person can take, and our self-employed tax calculator can help you work out how much of your profit to set aside for tax, leaving a clearer picture of what is genuinely available to save towards a sickness buffer on top.

Long-term sickness options

If you remain unable to work after your SSP or company sick pay entitlement ends, New Style Employment and Support Allowance is usually the next state support to look at, assessing your ability to work through a Work Capability Assessment. Personal Independence Payment is a separate benefit for the ongoing extra costs of a long-term health condition or disability, and is not dependent on your employment status or National Insurance record, so it can apply alongside other support.

For some pension schemes, ill health early retirement may be an option if you are permanently unable to work due to your health, allowing earlier access to a pension than the normal minimum pension age would usually allow, though the rules and evidence required vary significantly by scheme. Our UK Income Tax 2026/27 guide is a useful reference if a change in income from any of these routes affects your tax position.

Your rights when sick

For sickness lasting more than 7 days, including non-working days, your employer can ask for a fit note from your GP or another healthcare professional, confirming you are unfit for work or, in some cases, fit for work with certain adjustments. For shorter absences, employers usually accept self-certification without needing a formal note, though exact policies vary by employer.

Under the Equality Act 2010, employers have a duty to make reasonable adjustments for employees with a disability, which can include changes to sickness absence policies, working patterns or the workplace itself, depending on the individual situation. If you become unwell during a period of booked annual leave, you are generally entitled to reclaim those days as sick leave instead of holiday, provided you follow your employer's usual reporting process. Your National Insurance record, built up through employment or Class 2 contributions if self-employed, also underpins several of the long-term benefits mentioned above, so it is worth checking your record periodically on GOV.UK.

Whatever your situation, running your own numbers through our sick pay calculator is the quickest way to see roughly what you would be paid for a given period of sickness, before checking the exact detail against your own contract or, if you are self-employed, against our self-employed tax guide. If your time off is related to pregnancy or maternity leave rather than general sickness, our maternity pay calculator covers Statutory Maternity Pay and Maternity Allowance separately.

Frequently asked questions