Finding advice: Rights at work around pay

What are my rights at work around pay?

Wages, pay, salary – being paid is a basic right when working. But rights at work around pay can be a confusing issue, especially where sickness, holiday or tax are involved. Use this guide to online advice about your rights around pay at work to find the online advice to answer your questions.

What can I get paid if I’m off sick?
What if I’m self employed?
What about holiday pay?
What if I’m being dismissed or being made redundant?

Rights at work – advice online and locally

What can I get paid if I’m off sick from work?

If you’re off sick from work you might get:

  • Statutory Sick Pay; OR
  • sick pay as agreed in your contract. This is called Contractual Sick Pay.

To find out how much Statutory and Contractual Sick Pay is and who can get it, look at the Citizens Advice article about pay when you’re off sick from work.

Sick pay counts as wages, so you may have money taken off your sick pay for PAYE income tax and for National Insurance.

There are rules about telling your employer if you’re off sick – Citizens Advice has more info.

You may have more detailed questions about sick pay. ACAS can help you with information on your rights at work, for example when statutory sick pay runs out.

There is a really useful calculator for how much Statutory Sick Pay you are owed on GOV.UK.

If you’re pregnant you might want to check your rights to sick pay in this article from Maternity Action.

If you’re an agency worker your rights may be different. Check out Citizens Advice’s website for more infomation about agency workers’ rights.

Top tips:

  • check your work contract for what your employer has agreed you will be paid when you’re off sick
  • make sure you know how much Statutory Sick Pay you might get

Your rights at work can be complicated. If you are unsure about your rights and responsibilities regarding wages or employment, you should get more detailed advice.

What if I’m self-employed?

More and more people are self-employed in our current economy. As a self-employed person you generally have fewer rights than an employee.

You may need to think about all kinds of things like health and safety, training and employing aother people. Have a look at this checklist from Citizens Advice.

See what ACAS has to say about paid holiday for the self-employed, and self employment and the minimum wage.

TaxAid is a charity who advises people on low incomes who have tax problems that cannot be resolved by HMRC. You might find their page on running a business and paying tax useful. They also have Ten Tax Tips for the Self-Employed.

Top tip:

  • if you’re self-employed, make sure you know what your responsibilities are

Your rights at work can be complicated. If you are unsure about your rights and responsibilities regarding wages or employment, you should get more detailed advice.

What about holiday pay?

Most workers can get holiday pay. We sometimes call this ‘annual leave’ or ‘paid holiday’.

There is a minimum amount of paid holiday for workers, which is 5.6 weeks or 28 days per year. This can include bank holidays as part of the total. You should check your contract or terms and conditions to see what paid holiday, or holiday pay you can get. The amount you get may be different if you work part-time.

This article from Citizens Advice explains Holiday Pay in more detail.

You can find out more about how holiday pay is calculated on ACAS’s website.

You might also want to check with ACAS what the position is if you’re on a zero-hours contract.

Some people can’t get paid holiday – check Citizens Advice’s website to see if this applies to you.

Top tips:

  • check with your employer or in your contract what holiday pay you can expect to get

Your rights at work can be complicated. If you are unsure about your rights and responsibilities regarding wages or employment, you should get more detailed advice.

What if I’m being dismissed or made redundant?

If you’ve been made redundant, you might get:

  • Statutory Redundancy Pay; OR
  • redundancy pay as agreed in your contract. This is called Contractual Redundancy Pay.

You can calculate how much statutory redundancy pay you might get on the GOV.UK website calculator.

You should look at your contract or terms and conditions for details of your contractual sick pay.

Top tips:

  • check your contract to see what redundancy pay you might get
  • if you need more help and are being dismissed or made redundant, get advice straight away

Your rights at work can be complicated. If you are unsure about your rights and responsibilities regarding wages or employment, you should get more detailed advice.

Rights at work – advice online and locally

Your rights at work can be complicated. If you are unsure about your rights and responsibilities regarding wages or employment, you should get more detailed advice -see below for your options.

Free National helplines on your rights at work:

  • ACAS gives free, confidential and impartial advice about your rights at work. Call them on 0300 123 1100 Monday-Friday 8am-8pm and Saturday 9am – 1pm.
  • Working Families may be able to help you if you are a parent or carer. Their number is 0300 012 0312. Check their website for when you can call.

Online There’s some great information on Citizens Advice about pay in the article your Basic Rights at Work. You can also check out ACAS’s website, which has an ‘online helpline’ where you can type a question and browse the search results. It may be worth looking on the website GOV.UK for more infromation about pay, where you can find National Minimum Wage rates and information about different PAYE forms, such as P45s.

Face-to-face Finally, for local advice, go to our Advice Directory under Employment, then on the Filter click ‘advice’ and then click ‘Filter’. Check the list or Map view to see where you can get advice about Employment.