Employment law 2025: Six key tasks for HR

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Author: Stephen Simpson

In 2025, HR professionals face the unique challenge of dealing with business-as-usual employment law changes, such as increases in statutory maternity, paternity and sick pay, while also beginning their preparations in earnest for the looming Employment Rights Bill. We look at what HR needs to do to meet its employment law obligations and prepare for the coming year.

30 March/4 April: Publish your gender pay gap report

Organisations have 12 months to publish their gender pay gap figures from the relevant snapshot date (31 March for the public sector and 5 April for the private and voluntary sectors).

This means that the next gender pay gap reporting deadline is 30 March 2025 for public-sector employers and 4 April 2025 for private-sector and voluntary-sector employers. Organisations must publish reports on their website and on the gender pay gap reporting portal on the GOV.UK website.

Employers can choose to provide a narrative around any gender pay gap, including providing an explanation for their pay gap and setting out what steps they are taking to reduce the gap.

The HR & Compliance Centre Legal timetable is updated throughout the year with implementation dates for new employment laws.

1 April: Comply with national minimum wage increases

The rates for the national minimum wage change on 1 April 2025. The hourly rate of the minimum wage increases from:

  • £11.44 to £12.21 for workers aged 21 and over (the national living wage);
  • £8.60 to £10.00 for workers aged 18 to 20;
  • £6.40 to £7.55 for workers aged under 18 who are no longer of compulsory school age; and
  • £6.40 to £7.55 for apprentices under 19, or over 19 and in the first year of the apprenticeship.

Employers should check their pay rates against the forthcoming minimum wage rates and ensure that, where necessary, they increase remuneration for the first pay reference period beginning on or after 1 April 2025.

Our Dates for your diary feature provides a selection of key upcoming deadlines, celebrations and awareness days that you need to know about as an HR professional in the UK.

Events in January 2025 include minimum wage increases in multiple countries, Festival of Sleep Day, World Braille Day and Samaritans' Brew Monday. Events in February 2025 include LGBT+ History Month, World Interfaith Harmony Week, Time To Talk Day and National Apprenticeship Week.

6 April: Increase statutory family-related pay and sick pay

The rate of statutory maternity, adoption, paternity, shared parental and parental bereavement pay increases to £187.18, up from £184.03. The increase normally takes effect on the first Sunday in April, which in 2025 is 6 April.

The rate for statutory sick pay also rises on 6 April 2025. The new rate is £118.75, up from £116.75.

It is up to HR to make sure that staff on maternity, paternity, adoption, shared parental and parental bereavement leave, and staff on sick leave, are paid these statutory minimum rates.

HR professionals also need to review their policies and procedures that mention the rates, such as their maternity policies and sickness absence procedures.

6 April: Update your statutory redundancy pay calculations

New limits on employment statutory redundancy pay come into force on 6 April 2025.

Employers that dismiss employees for redundancy must pay those with two years' service an amount based on the employee's weekly pay, length of service and age.

The weekly pay is subject to a maximum amount (£700 from 6 April 2024). The new amount will be confirmed in the draft Employment Rights (Increase of Limits) Order 2025, which should be published in February 2025.

HR professionals should ensure that calculations for statutory redundancy payments are made on the basis of this new maximum amount for redundancy dismissals on or after 6 April 2025.

All year round: Keep track of the Employment Rights Bill

As well as implementing the above employment law changes and dealing with any other legal developments that come along, HR professionals need to stay on top of the looming Employment Rights Bill.

The Bill, which makes multiple complex and radical changes to employment law, continues its progress through Parliament well into 2025.

The Bill is expected to receive Royal Assent in the summer of 2025 at the earliest. Even then, there will need to be multiple supporting regulations before specific provisions can take effect and employers are required to comply with them.

The Employment Rights Bill is now at the Committee stage in Parliament, which is the third of 12 stages, the last of which is receiving Royal Assent to become an Act of Parliament.

The Committee stage involves a Public Bill Committee scrutinising the Employment Rights Bill line by line. The Public Bill Committee is expected to report back to Parliament by 21 January 2025.

While most of the changes are not taking effect until at least 2026, there are things that HR professionals can start doing now, as we explain in our Webinar: Employment Rights Bill - how HR can get ahead of the changes and Podcast: Employment Rights Bill Q&A.

All year round: Look out for other legislative developments

HR professionals need to remember that the Employment Rights Bill is not the only legislation that they need to keep track of in 2025.

The Government has stated that it intends to publish the first draft of the Equality (Race and Disability) Bill in 2025 during this parliamentary session, which ends in July 2025.

The Equality (Race and Disability) Bill extends mandatory pay gap reporting for employers with 250 or more employees to reporting on their ethnicity and disability pay gaps.

Two other significant Acts of Parliament received Royal Assent under the previous Conservative Government but have not been implemented. The Labour Government has not indicated what it intends to do with these, meaning that they could still be brought into force:

  • The Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023 provides parents with a day-one right to take a period of neonatal care leave if their baby needs neonatal care. The length of the leave is dependent on how long the baby needs care, with parents entitled to up to 12 weeks' leave and a minimum entitlement of one week's leave.
  • The Paternity Leave (Bereavement) Act 2024 allows an employee to take two weeks' paternity leave as a day-one right if the mother, or a person with whom a child is placed or expected to be placed for adoption, dies. There was also a plan to increase paternity leave for bereaved partners from two weeks to 52 weeks - although not included in the Act itself, the intention was for this change to be introduced via secondary legislation.

It is possible that the Government will proceed with both, given that:

  • Labour gave its support to the neonatal care leave and pay legislation, which started as a Private Members' Bill sponsored by Scottish National Party MP Stuart McDonald; and
  • the paternity bereavement leave legislation started as a Private Members' Bill sponsored by Labour MP Chris Elmore.

At a time when HR professionals may feel overwhelmed by the volume of changes on the horizon following the introduction of the Employment Rights Bill, our "On your radar" feature gives HR professionals an overview of upcoming employment law developments.