Pay levels and awards
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.
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
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.
Global employers operating in the EU will have seen the flurry of member states increasing their minimum wages at the beginning of the year. Is 2024 the year for fairer minimum wages in the EU? How should global organisations prepare?
With a raft of employment law changes taking effect in April 2024, we provide a final reminder for HR professionals of what their organisation needs to do to comply with the new and amended employment laws. This April, the challenges for HR include: the introduction of carer's leave; reforms to the right to request flexible working; and updated rules on timing and notice to take paternity leave.
With so much information at our fingertips, working out which data to trust can be an overwhelming task. To help you, we have put away our crystal ball and taken a look back to explore the reliability of our research and to understand retrospectively how accurate our pay forecast analyses have been.
Organisations are struggling to attract talent, but it doesn't have to be that way. Based on our survey findings, we explore ways to help employers address the skills shortage and stand out from the competition.
HR professionals must ensure that their organisation is on top of the raft of employment law developments in April 2023. These changes include rises in national minimum wage rates, gender pay gap reporting deadlines, and increases to statutory redundancy pay and maternity pay.
Commentary and insights: HR and legal information and guidance relating to pay levels and awards.