Muddling Through Maternity Pay: Your Rights, Insights & More

If you’re having a baby and you work, there’s a strong chance you’ll be discussing maternity pay soon.

To the uninitiated, maternity leave might sound like a great excuse to lounge around for a year and get paid doing it. But the uninitiated are, to put it politely, dead-frigging-wrong. Maternity leave definitely isn’t a holiday, and to anyone that thinks it is… well, they’re welcome to shove a watermelon from their privates and hop off to work the next day.

As such, if you’re having a baby and you work, there’s a strong chance you’ll be discussing maternity pay soon. Every company has its own maternity policy - there’s no one-size-fits-all here. We’re not going to lie, it’s a bit of a minefield.

We’re experts on all things baby products here at LittleList, but we’re yet to obtain our legal degrees. Read up all about your maternity rights and find support at Pregnant Then Screwed (a charity dedicated to ending the motherhood penalty). You can also use Nugget Savings to share and compare different maternity and paternity policies.

If you’re in a bit of a rush, we’ve put together the basics for you to get the jist before you deep dive into the above resources.

How do you qualify for maternity leave?

To first qualify for maternity leave, you’ll need to be an employee somewhere or self-employed. (Hold tight self-employed people, we’ll tackle you in a bit.)

If you work for an employer, you need to let said employers know that you’re pregnant at least 15 weeks before your pregnancy. (If you feel like you need any help telling your boss that you’re pregnant, we’ve got a handy little guide here for you.)

You’ll be entitled to statutory maternity pay (SMP) if you’re an employee and…

You work for your employer in the 15th week before your baby is due and have worked for them for at least 26 weeks before that.
Your average pay, before tax, is at least £123 a week.

So long as you qualify, you’re entitled to 52 weeks of maternity leave. That includes:

26 weeks of Ordinary Maternity Leave (OML)
26 weeks of Additional Maternity Leave (AML)

How do you qualify for maternity leave if you’re self-employed?

Things get a little more complicated if you’re self-employed. To put it simply, self-employed people don’t qualify for SMP. Good news though! SMP isn’t your only option here. Self-employed pregnant people can qualify for maternity allowance.

Maternity allowance is a benefit provided by the government for women who don’t qualify for SMP - which includes the self-employed! There are still a few pieces of criteria you need to meet, though:

You’ve been employed or self-employed for at least 26 weeks in the 66 weeks before your expected due date.
Your average pay, before tax, is at least £30 a week (for at least 13 weeks of those previously mentioned 26 weeks.)

What different kinds of maternity pay are there?

There are a few different kinds of maternity pay that you can be eligible for:

Statutory maternity pay: If you make the grade for this type of pay, it’s the legal bare minimum that your employer can pay you.
Contractual maternity pay: Sometimes employers offer this up instead of SMP. Your contract or company should let you know if that’s the case though.
Maternity Allowance: You may get this from the government if your employer doesn’t offer SMP.

It’s always a good shout to see what other help and benefits you may be entitled to as well.

When can you start your maternity leave?

You can begin your maternity leave any time from 11 weeks before your due date.

How long does SMP last?

If you qualify, SMP is paid for 39 weeks. The first 6 weeks are paid at 90% of your weekly earnings.

After that, the remaining 33 weeks will either be the current SMP rate (which you can check here) or 90% of your average weekly earnings - whichever is lower.

Then, the last 13 weeks of SMP are unpaid. However, your employers may choose to be more generous than the rules relating to SMP, so you should have a quick double-check with your employer’s policy and see.

We’ve given you some top-level info, but we’d recommend diving straight into the source and doing your own research with the Pregnant Then Screwed, Nugget Savings, Citizens Advice, the official Gov.UK website, and more.

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