If a staff member’s illness means they can’t come in to work they might be eligible, by law, to receive sick pay.
Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) in the United Kingdom is the basic amount of pay an employee is entitled to receive when they are absent from work due to illness or sickness. This should not be confused with Occupational Sick Pay (OSP).
What are the SSP rates in the UK for 2025/2026?
How much SSP an employee gets depends on the number of ‘qualifying’ days that they’ve worked each week.
When someone is sick, their first three days of absence are known as 'waiting days' and they don’t count toward SSP. After that, SSP is payable for every working day (which are known as 'qualifying days') that an employee misses due to sickness after the waiting days.
(As a company, you can decide to pay your employees more than the daily rate of SSP by providing additional OSP. What you can't do is pay lower than the basic statutory amount.)
How much is statutory sick pay per week in the UK?
The standard weekly rate for SSP in the UK for the 2025/26 tax year is £118.75.
These rates change every tax year, so it’s important to keep on top of them so you don’t accidentally keep paying employees an old rate.
Who is eligible for Statutory Sick Pay?
Not every UK employee who falls sick will be entitled to sick pay In order to be eligible to receive SSP. Here's the criteria that needs to be met:
They must have an employment contract with your Company or be recognised as an employee;
They must have started working under the conditions of their employment contract;
They must have been sick for four or more consecutive days (known as a Period of Incapacity for Work), including non-working days like weekends;
Their income must not be less than the Lower Earning Limit (LEL), which is £123 per week for 2024/2025;
They must notify you (and, in some cases, show proof) that they’ve been absent from work due to sickness.
In order to consider an employee’s periods of absence as “linked”, the sickness periods must either last four or more days or be at most eight weeks apart.
Who isn’t eligible for Statutory Sick Pay?
An employee isn’t entitled to SSP in the UK if:
They’ve already received SSP for up to 28 weeks;
They’re receiving Statutory Maternity Pay or Allowance;
They’re pregnant and off work for any illness related to their pregnancy within four weeks before the week their baby is due;
They spent the first day of their illness in custody or involved in a strike;
They’re not paying NICs because they work outside the EU;
They already received Employment and Support Allowance within their first 12 weeks of working for you.
You’ll need to give employees who are not eligible for SSP an SSP1 Form.
Employees can use this form themselves to support their application for Universal Credit and Employment and Support Allowance.
How to calculate the UK SSP rate for your employees:
An SSP calculation for a full-time worker:
They work every Monday to Friday but were absent from work for two weeks due to illness. This means they were unavailable for 10 working days, 7 of which are qualifying (10 days off - 3 waiting days).
To calculate their SSP, you need to divide the weekly SSP rate (£118.75) by the number of days they typically work in a week (that’s generally 5). Then, multiply that by the number of qualifying days:
£118.75 divide 5 multiply by 7 = £166.25
An SSP calculation for a part-time worker:
They miss two weeks due to illness but only work Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. This means they were unavailable for 6 days, 3 of which are qualifying after removing the 3 waiting days. So, the SSP calculation will be:
£118.75 divide 3 multiple by 3 = £118.75
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