Pay and benefits
What are UK employers prioritising when it comes to reward in 2026? We reveal the key themes emerging from our latest survey of more than 200 organisations, offering insight into how pay, benefits and recognition are set to evolve in the next year.
The national minimum wage (NMW) is often seen as a simple legal requirement: as long as you pay your workers at least the statutory rate, you are meeting compliance requirements. However, the rules are nuanced, and misunderstandings can lead organisations to costly errors, enforcement action and reputational damage.
While the introduction of neonatal care leave and pay is the key change for HR professionals to get to grips with, there are other employment law changes in April 2025. These include increases to the national minimum wage rates; a rise in statutory redundancy pay; and the uprating of statutory sick pay and family-related pay.
Whether it's because you need to comply with EU legislation or because you want to make the link between pay transparency and engagement, preparing to be "transparent" involves a lot more than just showing salaries in job adverts.
It's the hot topic in the HR world. Now set to be a requirement for companies operating under EU rules, "pay transparency" appears to be on every conference agenda and webinar calendar, sold as a solution to the gender pay gap, a way to bring greater fairness to organisations and a means to increase employee engagement. But there's a lot more to it than that, says Jane Vivier.
We know the price of things in a shop. We have prices on menus and we have laws around weights and measures so we know what we're getting for our money, whether we're buying apples or apple brandy. So why is it still acceptable to advertise a job without stating a salary or salary range? Jane Vivier has a theory.
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
With reward programmes making up such a large percentage of your organisation's budget, it's no surprise that HR needs to be able to explain and prove their ROI. You need to get them "right". Easy, not! To help you meet this challenge, award-winning HR leader and consultant and bestselling author Debra Corey sets out six things you need to think about and address.
The announcement of National Insurance Contributions (NICs) increases in the October Budget has had an impact on many organisations' 2025 pay rise plans. We look at the expected effect on pay award budgets.
Although the formal Bill is yet to be published, the Government has outlined plans to require organisations with 250 and more employees to report their ethnicity and disability pay data. To prepare HR leaders for this change, Brightmine and HR Grapevine convened a roundtable discussion to address the practical and cultural challenges of expanded pay gap reporting.
Commentary and insights: HR and legal information and guidance relating to pay and benefits.