UK Sick Pay Calculator (SSP & Company Pay)

Sick pay rules changed significantly from April 2026, and with employer schemes varying so much on top of the statutory minimum, it is easy to lose track of what you are actually entitled to during a period of sickness. This calculator estimates your total sick pay, split between Statutory Sick Pay and any company scheme, based on your employment status, salary and how many days you have been off.

How to use the sick pay calculator

Choose your employment status, employee, agency worker or self-employed, since eligibility rules differ. Enter your weekly salary, used to work out your average weekly earnings for the SSP calculation, and the number of working days you have been or expect to be off sick. If you are an employee or agency worker, also select your employer's sick pay policy, statutory pay only, full pay for a set number of weeks before dropping to SSP, or half pay before dropping to SSP, along with how many weeks that company scheme runs for.

How the calculation works

Your SSP weekly rate is the lower of the flat statutory rate or 80% of your average weekly earnings, which the calculator estimates from your weekly salary. From 6 April 2026, SSP is payable from the first day of sickness, for a maximum of 28 weeks in any single period of incapacity for work. If your employer offers an enhanced scheme, the calculator pays out full or half salary, whichever is higher than the SSP rate, for the number of weeks you specify, then switches to the SSP-only rate for any remaining sickness within your 28-week entitlement. Our take-home pay calculator can then show you what any of these figures look like after tax and National Insurance.

Worked example

Take an employee on £500 a week, off sick for 30 working days, 6 weeks, whose employer pays full salary for the first 4 weeks before dropping to SSP.

For the first 4 weeks, they receive their full £500 weekly salary, totalling £2,000. For the remaining 2 weeks, they drop to the SSP rate, the lower of £123.25 a week or 80% of their earnings, which in this case is the flat £123.25 rate, giving another £246.50. Their total sick pay across the 6 weeks comes to around £2,246.50, all of which is still subject to Income Tax and National Insurance in the normal way.

Common mistakes when working out sick pay

A common mistake is assuming SSP still has a 3-day waiting period before payments start, which was the rule before the April 2026 reform but no longer applies, since SSP is now payable from day one. Another is assuming company sick pay is paid on top of SSP as an extra amount, when most occupational schemes actually state that SSP is included within the company figure, so you receive one combined payment rather than two separate ones during any full or half pay period. Always check your contract or staff handbook, since company scheme rules vary a lot between employers. Our UK sick pay guide covers these rules in more detail.

It is also worth remembering that self-employed people cannot claim SSP at all, which catches some people out when moving from employment to self-employment. Our self-employed tax guide explains what support is available instead.

Related calculators

To see how any sick pay figure translates into your actual take-home pay after tax, use our take-home pay calculator. If you are self-employed and want to understand your tax position without SSP, our self-employed tax calculator can help. Our National Insurance calculator and salary to hourly calculator are also useful if you are trying to understand your overall pay picture during a period of reduced income.