Statutory Sick Pay in the UK is £123.25 per week from 6 April 2026. But that's the maximum, not an automatic amount for everyone, because some employees will get less if 80% of their average weekly earnings comes out lower.
If you're dealing with an absence report, a fit note, or a manager asking what payroll should do next, that distinction matters straight away. The question sounds simple, but the practical answer depends on who is off sick, what they earn, when the absence started, and whether the case overlaps with the April 2026 rule change.
Answering the Question How Much Is SSP Per Week
A manager gets a call at 8:15 on Monday. A part-time employee is off sick, asks what they will be paid, and wants an answer before payroll closes. The quick reply is up to £123.25 per week under the 2026 SSP rate, paid by the employer for up to 28 weeks.
In practice, that figure is only the starting point.
The amount paid is the lower of £123.25 or 80% of average weekly earnings, as set out in Acas guidance on checking Statutory Sick Pay. That point matters most for lower-paid staff, part-time workers, and anyone with variable earnings. If you manage those groups, this guide to Statutory Sick Pay for part-time employees is a useful reference.
Practical rule: Treat £123.25 as the weekly SSP cap. Check earnings before you confirm the payment amount.
That is the point many employers miss. Managers repeat the headline rate to the employee. Payroll runs the calculation and produces a lower figure. The disagreement usually starts there, not because the rate is unclear, but because the rule is applied too late.
A careful answer also depends on the dates. April 2026 created transitional cases, so an absence that started before the change can need different handling from one that started after it. I have seen employers get the weekly amount right in principle but still apply the wrong rule set because nobody checked the first day of sickness.
Before giving an answer, check:
- The first day of absence. Transitional cases need extra care.
- Average weekly earnings. Lower-paid employees may receive less than the weekly cap.
- How much SSP has already been used. The statutory limit is 28 weeks.
- Whether there is medical evidence or a fitness-for-work issue. Managers can avoid bad calls by reviewing key insights on medical fitness.
The practical problem is not finding the headline SSP rate. It is applying the 2026 rules correctly to the person in front of you, especially where earnings are low, hours vary, or the sickness period overlaps the rule change.
SSP Eligibility Who Qualifies Under the 2026 Rules
The biggest shift in 2026 is that eligibility became broader. The reform paper confirms that the Lower Earnings Limit was removed and the four-day waiting period was abolished, so SSP is now payable from day one of sickness and there is no minimum earnings threshold for eligibility under the reformed scheme, as set out in the government's SSP reform paper.
That's the rule change many employers were waiting for, especially those with part-time, variable-hours and lower-paid staff.
What changed in practice
Under the older approach, payroll teams often started with two blocking questions. Did the employee earn enough, and had they been off sick long enough for waiting days to pass? Those checks changed from April 2026.
Now the practical starting point is simpler. If the person is an eligible employee and they are off sick, you assess SSP from the first day under the new rules.
That has a direct effect on employers with casual work patterns, lower-paid roles and part-time contracts. If you manage these groups, it's worth reading this guide on Statutory Sick Pay for part-time employees, because policy wording and payroll handling often diverge in such circumstances.
A sensible manager checklist
Use this as your operational check:
- Employment status matters. SSP applies to employees who qualify under the statutory rules. It doesn't merely apply because someone works for you in a broad sense.
- Day one now matters. The old waiting period has gone under the April 2026 reform.
- Low earnings no longer block eligibility. That's a major change, but it doesn't mean every employee gets the full headline weekly amount.
- Evidence and reporting still matter. Employees still need to report sickness properly and follow your absence procedure.
- Longer-running absence still needs monitoring. Eligibility doesn't remove the need to manage records, linked cases and the point at which SSP ends.
A good SSP process starts with status, dates and evidence. It doesn't start with the headline rate.
Managers also need to separate fitness for work from pay entitlement. They overlap, but they are not the same question. If you're reviewing capability, adjustments or return-to-work timing, these key insights on medical fitness are useful because they focus on practical workplace judgement rather than payroll alone.
What often goes wrong
The common mistake is assuming wider access means a uniform payment. It doesn't. The reform widened entitlement. It did not turn SSP into one flat amount for every worker.
The second mistake is letting managers improvise. If one manager says “you'll get the full SSP rate” and payroll later pays less under the earnings calculation, the employee sees that as an error even when payroll is right.
Calculating SSP Payments A Practical Guide with Examples
The most important calculation rule is simple: SSP is paid at the lower of £123.25 or 80% of the employee's average weekly earnings, according to GOV.UK guidance on what you'll get.
That's the answer behind the answer. It's also why the search query how much is SSP per week can be misleading if you stop at the headline rate.
The lower-of rule in plain English
Think of the calculation as a comparison:
| Check | What you compare | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Statutory cap | £123.25 per week | This is the maximum weekly SSP rate |
| Earnings-based amount | 80% of average weekly earnings | If this is lower, this is what you pay |
For higher earners, 80% of average weekly earnings will often exceed the statutory cap, so the employee gets £123.25.
For lower-paid employees, 80% of average weekly earnings may fall below the cap, so the employee gets that lower figure instead.
If your payroll team needs a clean process for handling weekly pay calculations more broadly, this article on calculating weekly pay is a useful operational reference.
Example one with a higher earner
An employee is off sick after 6 April 2026. Their average weekly earnings are high enough that 80% of those earnings is more than £123.25.
In that case, SSP is capped at £123.25 per week. The cap applies because SSP is a statutory minimum scheme with a fixed weekly maximum.
This is the scenario many managers expect. It's straightforward and usually matches the number they've already heard.
Example two with a lower-paid or part-time worker
Now take a part-time employee whose average weekly earnings are lower. You calculate 80% of average weekly earnings, and that amount comes out below £123.25.
That employee does not receive the headline weekly amount. They receive the lower earnings-based SSP amount instead.
Watch this carefully: the 2026 reform widened access by removing the earnings threshold, but it also means more employees now qualify for SSP at an amount below the headline weekly cap.
That's why lower-paid and part-time workers are the group most often misunderstood in absence conversations. Managers hear “SSP is £123.25 a week” and relay that as if it's universal. It isn't.
Where payroll teams usually slip
The errors I see most often are practical rather than technical:
- Using the headline rate as a default instead of checking average weekly earnings.
- Ignoring the eight-week earnings lookback referred to in the verified guidance.
- Treating part-time staff as a special category when the actual issue is earnings, not contract label.
- Explaining the outcome badly to the employee, which creates avoidable disputes.
A useful parallel is how other income-replacement schemes create tax confusion when people assume the gross label tells the whole story. That's why resources like this guide to disability insurance taxation are helpful conceptually. Different scheme, same lesson. You need the actual rules, not the headline description.
What works in real payroll administration
What works is a repeatable calculation path:
- Confirm the sickness dates.
- Confirm the employee falls under the current rules.
- Calculate average weekly earnings using the required pay reference period.
- Apply the lower-of test.
- Pay through normal payroll and keep the calculation trail.
What doesn't work is informal spreadsheet logic, copied forward from old SSP rules, with no note showing why one employee received the cap and another received less.
Employer Obligations for SSP Administration
A manager gets a call at 7:30am. The employee says they are too unwell to work, asks what they will be paid, and mentions they only work three short shifts a week. From that point, SSP administration stops being a payroll detail and becomes an operational test. If the dates, evidence and payroll instructions do not match, the error usually shows up in the employee's payslip first.
Employers are responsible for paying SSP through payroll, keeping records, and applying the rules consistently. The practical pressure point in 2026 is rarely the headline weekly rate. It is the admin around lower-paid staff, irregular hours, linked absences, and employees who move in or out of eligibility during a sickness period.
What the employer needs to control
Good SSP administration starts with a clear chain of responsibility.
Line managers should record the first day of sickness, the reported reason for absence, and whether the employee is expected back quickly or may need medical evidence. HR should check the policy position, including reporting rules and trigger points for formal absence management. Payroll should only process SSP once the relevant dates and status checks are clear.
The records matter because transitional and part-time cases often turn on small details. A missed waiting day, a wrong start date, or a failure to link related periods of sickness can change both entitlement and pay.
A workable process usually includes:
- capturing the first qualifying information accurately, including the first day off and the days the employee was due to work
- applying absence reporting rules consistently, so one manager is not accepting late or vague notifications that another manager would reject
- collecting evidence at the correct point, with self-certification and fit notes filed against the same absence record
- sending SSP through normal payroll controls, with a note showing how the payment decision was reached
- keeping records that explain exceptions, especially where a low-paid or part-time worker falls below the earnings threshold or drops out of SSP during a linked case
Where employers get into trouble
In practice, employers do not usually fail on the broad rule. They fail on handover.
A line manager logs “off sick this week.” Payroll reads that as one thing. HR later learns the employee was already absent recently, which may affect linked periods and waiting days. By then, the payslip has been issued and the conversation with the employee is harder to recover.
That risk is higher where pay patterns are not neat. Part-time staff, zero-hours workers, and employees with variable earnings need cleaner records, not special treatment. The rule set is the same. The admin burden is not.
I advise managers to avoid confirming a payment figure on day one. Confirm the reporting requirement, ask the right questions, and tell the employee payroll will check eligibility and calculation before the amount is confirmed. That approach prevents avoidable disputes.
What good SSP administration looks like in practice
The strongest process is one where HR, payroll and the manager can all see the same absence record and the same decision trail. If someone asks six weeks later why SSP started on a certain date, the file should answer the question without a search of old emails.
That discipline also helps with wider payroll control. Teams reviewing their wider process of payroll usually find that SSP problems come from fragmented approval steps, not from the statutory rule itself. The same point applies if you oversee mixed payroll obligations. striveX for CIS and payroll compliance is a useful example of how process control reduces errors before they become correction work.
For employers still managing SSP with emails, spreadsheets and separate notes, the trade-off is obvious. The system may feel familiar, but it makes transitional cases slower to check and much harder to defend. That is one reason integrated HR and payroll tools are becoming more useful in absence management. They reduce duplicate entry, keep evidence with the case, and give payroll a cleaner instruction set.
Training managers to avoid avoidable errors
Managers do not need to calculate SSP themselves. They do need to know what to capture and what not to promise.
A short manager briefing should cover:
- what the employee must report on the first day of absence
- when self-certification ends and fit note requirements start
- who checks SSP eligibility and calculation
- when linked or longer-running absences need HR review
- how to explain outcomes to lower-paid or part-time workers without guessing at the payment amount
For a useful overview of absence and payroll administration, this video is worth sharing with new managers after you've covered your own policy rules.
Navigating Contractual Sick Pay and SSP Overlap
Many employers don't just pay SSP. They also offer contractual sick pay, sometimes for recruitment reasons, sometimes because the business has always done it that way.
The cleanest way to explain the relationship is this. SSP is the legal safety net. Contractual sick pay is the employer's enhanced arrangement. One doesn't cancel the other. The contractual scheme has to work in a way that still respects the statutory floor.
The practical relationship
If your policy says an employee gets full pay, half pay or another company-defined sick pay arrangement, SSP normally sits inside that arrangement rather than alongside it as a separate bonus amount.
That's where confusion often starts. Employees may think they are entitled to both in full, stacked on top of each other. In practice, the employer usually offsets SSP within the contractual payment, provided the total pay meets the legal requirement and the policy wording supports that approach.
Here's the comparison managers usually need:
| Situation | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| No contractual sick pay | The employee receives SSP only, if eligible |
| Contractual sick pay above SSP | The employer pays the enhanced amount and accounts for SSP within it |
| Poorly drafted policy | HR and payroll end up debating whether SSP is included or added |
Where policies fail
The risk isn't usually generosity. It's ambiguity.
A policy that says “employees will receive sick pay” without explaining how SSP interacts with that payment invites disputes. So does a manager handbook that says one thing while payroll instructions say another.
If your contractual sick pay scheme is silent on SSP offset, don't assume everyone reads it the same way.
Good policy wording answers three questions clearly:
- Who qualifies for contractual sick pay
- How long it lasts
- Whether SSP is included within the company payment or paid on top
What works and what does not
What works is writing the contractual scheme in plain English and matching that wording in payroll setup, manager guidance and employee communications.
What does not work is bolting a generous sounding policy on top of a manual payroll process and hoping the detail sorts itself out later.
This matters most where absence becomes sensitive. If an employee is already unwell, the last thing you want is an avoidable pay dispute caused by vague drafting or inconsistent explanations. In those cases, the legal point and the employee relations point are the same. Be precise early.
Streamline SSP with Modern HR Solutions
SSP looks manageable when you read only the headline rate. The operational reality is harder. Employers have to handle broader eligibility after the 2026 reform, lower-paid workers whose entitlement is below the maximum, payroll calculations based on earnings, record keeping, and cases that cross rule-change dates.
One of the trickiest areas is transitional absence. Guidance notes that workers already on SSP before the April 2026 change may continue receiving the uprated flat rate of £123.25 for the remainder of their absence, subject to the usual rules, as explained in this employer guidance on the new SSP rules. That's exactly the kind of edge case that causes trouble when teams rely on memory, spreadsheets and email chains.
Why manual handling breaks down
Manual administration tends to fail in familiar ways:
- Rules live in people's heads instead of the system.
- Payroll and HR hold different versions of the same absence record.
- Managers trigger actions by email, which leaves weak audit trails.
- Legislative changes arrive faster than internal templates get updated.
That's why integrated HR and payroll tooling matters. Not because SSP is glamorous, but because it is repetitive, rules-based and easy to get wrong at scale.
What a modern setup should do
A capable HR platform should help you:
- track sickness dates accurately
- apply the right rule set for the relevant period
- support payroll calculations consistently
- retain the right records for compliance
- surface absence data to HR, payroll and managers in one place
Hubdrive's HR Management for Microsoft Dynamics 365 is built for this type of hire-to-retire administration. From the product information available through Hubdrive materials, the strength is that it sits natively in the Microsoft ecosystem and supports process consistency across HR operations rather than forcing sickness management into disconnected tools.
The value of an HR system isn't just speed. It's removing judgement calls from routine statutory processes.
For organisations already using Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform, that matters. SSP shouldn't depend on who happens to be in the payroll inbox that morning. It should run through a controlled process with clear dates, calculations and records.
If your business is still juggling sickness reports in Outlook, spreadsheets in SharePoint and separate payroll notes elsewhere, the administration cost is larger than it first appears. The issue isn't only efficiency. It's consistency, auditability and confidence when an employee asks why they were paid a certain amount.
DynamicsHub helps UK organisations modernise HR around real business processes, not generic templates. We are DynamicsHub. Experience HR transformation built around your business. Hubdrive's HR Management for Microsoft Dynamics 365 is the premier hire‑to‑retire solution, more powerful, more flexible, and more future‑ready than Microsoft Dynamics 365 HR. To see how you can automate SSP and improve absence, payroll and compliance workflows, Phone 01522 508096 today or send us a message.
