Is defined as money that a woman is paid during the time she is legally allowed to be absent from work in the weeks before and after she has a baby (source Cambridge Dictionary).
In the UK maternity pay varies between employers. On one hand, you have employers who pay the minimum Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) and on the other, you have generous employers who offer periods of half or full pay for up to a year.
SMP for eligible employees can be paid for up to 39 weeks, usually as follows:
the first 6 weeks: 90% of their average weekly earnings (AWE) before tax
the remaining 33 weeks: £151.20 or 90% of their AWE (whichever is lower)
Tax and National Insurance need to be deducted.
Source: .gov.uk
Maternity Leave in the UK is one of the lowest paid maternity leave periods in the world. So you have already started maternity leave and you haven’t had the chance to take a look at your finances? If you haven’t had the chance to look at this article, it’s a good place to start. It…
Read More
Imagine if you had a maternity leave calculator to help you make some informed decisions about Maternity Leave? Wouldn’t it be great if it could tell you month by month what your financial situation would be? What about if it could tell you exactly how much money you needed to save? And to make it…
Read More
The reason for this post about how Maternity Leave works is because it is easy to get confused. Maternity Leave, Maternity Pay and a whole host of other terms which are applicable during your leave can all run into one and be too much to deal with in light of everything else you have going…
Read More
Maternity Leave when self employed… Self-employed Mums, unfortunately, don’t qualify for Maternity Pay. However, Maternity Leave when you are self-employed is your decision. It’s up to you to decide whether your business carries on (and how it happens). Maternity Pay is restricted to Mums who are employed. The payment of Maternity Pay is a contractual…
Read More
Maternity Leave and Maternity Pay in the UK can be confusing to get your head around. SMP, OML, and AML – what on earth do they all mean? The UK has one of the longest periods of paid maternity leave in the world. BUT we have one the world’s worst paid maternity leaves. Mums who do not qualify for…
Read More