Maternity pay UK

[Bluemoon042]

Hi all,

hoping you can help. I am likely going to be made redundant in the next few months and so I will need to find a new job. I am almost 30 so thinking of starting a family in the next 2-3 years. However, I am worried about getting maternity pay. I know the standard is 2 years service usually but I am wondering if anyone can advise… in your experience is it two years from when you actually go off for maternity or two years from when you tell your employer you are pregnant? Or somewhere in between? Any advice or experience is really appreciated. Thanks!

Your employer has to pay you statutory maternity leave if you work for your employer in the 15th week before your baby is due and have worked for them for at least 26 weeks before that.

Definitely not two years.

So basically as long as you're not already pregnant when you start working for them, you're entitled to statutory maternity pay.

Employers who pay enhanced maternity pay might have different qualifying criteria so worth bearing in mind, especially if you're used to earning a much higher salary that you're dependent on.

Sounds like the best course of action would be to save as much as you can and hopefully get a new job quickly if you do get made redundant or if you're not expecting much in the way of redundancy pay, start job hunting straight away.

Then you'll be in the best position to manage with the loss of income when you take maternity leave.

For my employer, enhanced maternity pay is paid if you've been employed for two years when the baby is born. It's the difference between statutory and six months full pay so would definitely be worth waiting for where I work.

I assume you're talking about an employer's enhanced maternity package as opposed to statutory (which @Potplant19 has covered above). If so, the answer will vary from company to company - ours requires 26 weeks service at the qualifying week (15th week before your baby is due), recently reduced from 2 years.

For statutory pay, you can essentially get pregnant once you start working there and you’d be entitled to it. For enhanced pay it totally depends on the employer-most I’ve seen you have to have been there a year when you start maternity leave - I work at a university where you get enhanced pay from day 1!

What 2 year rule?

There’s no 2 year rule for SMP. Some employers offer enhanced maternity pay. But there’s not set rule about when that available.

My employer offered it after the first years another employer offered it after 6 months.