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Redundancy Pay

Statutory redundancy pay is a formula, not a negotiation: your age, your length of service and your weekly pay, with the weekly figure capped. For redundancies on or after 6 April 2026 that cap is £751 a week, and the statutory maximum is £22,530. The more valuable question is usually not how much — it is whether the redundancy was genuine and properly handled at all. Call 0800 007 4103 free, any hour — and a one-hour consultation with a UK solicitor (£145, a fixed fee) can be booked right on the call.

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Redundancy Pay at a glance

The formula

Half a week's pay per year under 22, one week per year from 22 to 40, one and a half weeks per year at 41 or over

Capped three ways

20 years of service counted, £751 weekly cap, £22,530 overall maximum from 6 April 2026

Two years to qualify

Statutory redundancy pay needs two years' continuous service

Tax free to £30,000

Genuine redundancy payments are tax free up to £30,000; notice pay is taxed normally

Consultation is required

Individual consultation always; collective consultation where 20 or more are proposed at one establishment

Was it a real redundancy?

A redundancy exists where the business is closing, the workplace is closing, or the need for employees to do work of a particular kind has reduced. If your job is being done by someone else the week after you go, that is not redundancy — it is a dismissal dressed as one, and it is unfair. Watch for the substitution of a 'restructure' where the same work continues under a new job title, and for selection criteria invented to fit a predetermined outcome. The pool, the criteria and the scoring are where genuine redundancies are won and sham ones exposed. Talk it through with a lawyer now →

The process the employer must follow

Individual consultation is required in every redundancy: a genuine warning, a fair selection pool, objective and consistently applied criteria, meaningful consultation meetings at which you can challenge your scores, a genuine search for suitable alternative employment, and an appeal. Where 20 or more redundancies are proposed at one establishment within 90 days, collective consultation with representatives is required, with minimum periods before dismissals take effect, and failure carries a separate protective award. Employees on maternity or adoption leave have enhanced priority for suitable alternative roles. Talk it through with a lawyer now →

The money, beyond the statutory minimum

Statutory redundancy pay is the floor, not the ceiling. Check your contract and staff handbook for an enhanced scheme, and check whether custom and practice has made a more generous payment contractual. Separately from redundancy pay you are entitled to your notice or pay in lieu, accrued untaken holiday, and any contractual bonus or commission owed. A settlement agreement offered in exchange for waiving claims is common; it only binds you once you have had independent legal advice on it, and that advice is normally paid for by the employer. Talk it through with a lawyer now →

If you are being made redundant, step by step

Check the arithmetic yourselfAge bands, capped years, capped weekly pay. Employers get this wrong more often than you would think.

Challenge the pool and your scores in consultationThis is the stage where the outcome can still change.

Get advice before signing a settlement agreementIt waives your claims, and the advice is usually employer-funded. Call 0800 007 4103 free, any hour — and a one-hour consultation with a UK solicitor (£145, a fixed fee) can be booked right on the call.

Redundancy Pay — your questions answered

How much redundancy pay will I get?

Take your years of continuous service, up to 20, and count each year at half a week's pay if you were under 22, a full week from 22 to 40, and a week and a half at 41 or over. Weekly pay is capped at £751 for redundancies on or after 6 April 2026, and the total is capped at £22,530. If you earn more than the cap, the excess simply does not count towards the statutory figure — which is why any enhanced scheme in your contract matters so much.

Can I be made redundant while on maternity leave?

Only if the redundancy is genuine, and you have significantly enhanced protection: employees on maternity leave must be offered any suitable alternative vacancy in priority to other redundant colleagues, and that protection now extends beyond the leave itself. A dismissal connected with pregnancy or maternity is automatically unfair and is also discrimination, with no qualifying period and no cap on compensation. Redundancies announced during maternity leave deserve close scrutiny.

Do I have to accept a job they offer instead?

If the alternative is genuinely suitable and you unreasonably refuse it, you can lose your redundancy pay. Suitability looks at pay, status, hours, location and skills, and refusal can be reasonable for good personal reasons — a much longer commute, a shift pattern impossible with childcare. You also have a statutory four-week trial period in a new role without losing the right to redundancy pay if it does not work out.

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