FullWorkings UK tax and finance calculators

Minimum wage

April 2026

The job

PayBefore tax. Whatever figure you have. £
PerHow the figure above is quoted.
Hours a weekThe hours actually worked, including any unpaid overtime you are required to do. 37.5 is a common full-time week — change it to yours.
Which rate appliesAn apprentice past their first year, aged 19 or over, moves to their age rate.

What it works out to

Your hourly rate £0.00 an hour
Verdict—
The rate that applies—
The minimum£0.00
Difference an hour£0.00
Difference a week£0.00
Difference a year£0.00
A year at the minimum£0.00
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How this is worked out

The minimum wage is an hourly figure, so a salary only clears it once you know the hours. Two people on the same salary can be one on the right side of the law and one on the wrong side.

The conversion is across 52 weeks, not a notional year

An annual salary becomes an hourly rate by dividing it across 52 weeks of the hours you gave. Dividing by 2,080 instead assumes a 40-hour week whatever was typed in — and the whole question here is whether the hours actually worked take someone under the line.

⚠ Unpaid extra hours are still hours

Time worked beyond a contract counts if the worker is required to do it — arriving early to set up, staying to cash up, a working lunch, training. That is the most common way a lawful-looking salary becomes an underpayment: the pay never changed, the hours did.

⚠ Deductions can take you under it

Money taken from pay for the employer's own benefit counts against the minimum wage — uniforms, tools, till shortfalls. So can salary sacrifice, which is why a pension arrangement can create a minimum wage breach for a low-paid worker even though the money goes to them. Accommodation is treated differently again, under an offset with its own daily limit.

Apprentices

The apprentice rate applies while an apprentice is under 19, or in the first year of the apprenticeship at any age. After the first year, an apprentice aged 19 or over moves to the ordinary rate for their age — which is a rise most people have to ask for.

The rates change on 1 April

Not 6 April. The minimum wage year and the tax year are a week apart, which catches out anyone reading a payslip in early April.

What this does not cover

The accommodation offset. Pay reference periods, which is how HMRC actually assesses this — the test is applied to each pay period rather than to the year. Output work and unmeasured work, which have their own rules. Tips, which do not count toward the minimum wage. And whether someone is a worker at all, which is where most genuine disputes start.

Where these figures come from

Every rate above is read from a dated rate file rather than written into the page, and each one is checked against the gov.uk page it came from. How these numbers are kept right sets out the whole process.

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