Statutory pay

All three are paid by your employer at a weekly rate, and each is capped at a number of weeks. What differs is how the weekly rate is arrived at.

⚠ Sick pay is now the lower of two figures

Statutory Sick Pay used to be a flat weekly rate for anyone who qualified. It is now the flat rate or 80% of your normal weekly earnings, whichever is lower — so a part-time or low-paid worker gets less than the headline figure, and a calculator still paying the flat rate to everyone over-states their pay.

The other side of the change is that there are no longer three unpaid waiting days: sick pay runs from the first working day you are off. That is worth more to most people than the cap costs them.

Maternity pay is two rates, in order

90% of your average weekly earnings for the first weeks, then the lower of the flat rate and that same 90%. Someone earning under about £216 a week is on 90% throughout, because 90% of their earnings never reaches the flat rate — which is why this page names which rule it used rather than just showing a number.

Paternity pay is one rate for two weeks

The flat rate or 90% of average weekly earnings, whichever is lower. The two weeks can be taken together or as two separate single weeks, and a week means the days you normally work rather than seven days.

Average weekly earnings are your employer's calculation

They are worked out over a set period before the leave or sickness starts, and the period differs between the three. A bonus or a pay rise falling inside that window changes the figure, sometimes substantially — this page takes the average as given rather than trying to reconstruct it.

What this does not cover

Whether you qualify: each has its own earnings and service tests, and this page assumes you have passed them. Contractual sick or maternity pay, which is often far more generous and is whatever the contract says. Shared Parental Pay and Adoption Pay, which run at the same rate as maternity's standard weeks but on their own timetables. Neonatal care pay. Tax and National Insurance, which come off statutory pay like any other wages — see the take-home pay calculator. And the first weeks of maternity leave being compulsory, which is a legal requirement rather than a choice.

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.

Take-home pay calculator