Statutory sick pay changed in two ways on 6 April 2026, and for a trade business with site staff the second one is the expensive change. The earnings limit went, so everyone eligible qualifies regardless of pay. And the waiting days went, so SSP runs from day one of absence rather than the fourth day. The government's own costing puts most of the extra national cost down to the waiting days — which is the half that lands on construction.
Article · 27 April 2026
Under the Employment Rights Act 2025 (Royal Assent 18 December 2025), from 6 April 2026:
Absences that started before 6 April 2026 follow the old rules, so an absence straddling the date is dealt with under the regime that applied when it began.
The government's costing of the reform is around £400 million a year extra in sick pay nationally, and it attributes most of the increase to removing waiting days rather than removing the earnings limit.
Think about what that means for the shape of absence in construction. Site absences are frequently short: a bad back, a cut hand, a stomach bug, a day after a heavy lift. One, two and three-day absences were exactly the ones that cost nothing under the old three waiting days. They now all cost something.
A builder employs five site operatives. Across the year they have, between them, twelve short absences of one to three days and two longer absences of a week.
Under the old rules: the twelve short absences fell inside the three waiting days and cost nothing. The two week-long absences produced roughly four qualifying days each.
Under the new rules: all twelve short absences are payable from day one — say twenty-four days in total — plus the two longer absences now pay from day one as well, adding six more days.
At the £123.25 weekly cap, a day is roughly £24.65 on a five-day week. Thirty additional paid days is about £740 a year. Where 80% of normal weekly earnings is lower than the cap, it will be less.
It is not a large number. It is a predictable number, it did not exist before, and it scales directly with headcount — which is the point for anyone planning to grow the payroll. See taking on your first employee for the rest of what a hire costs in 2026/27.
SSP is now the lower of 80% of normal weekly earnings and £123.25 a week. For a full-time site operative, 80% of earnings will comfortably exceed £123.25, so the cap applies and SSP is £123.25.
For a low-hours worker the 80% figure may be lower than the cap, and that is what they get. The removal of the lower earnings limit is what brings them into the system at all — previously they might have earned too little to qualify for anything.
6 April 2026 was the main employer-cost date, and it also brought day-one paternity leave and unpaid parental leave, a doubled collective redundancy protective award, bereaved partners' paternity leave of up to 52 weeks, and strengthened whistleblowing protection for sexual harassment. The Fair Work Agency was established on 7 April 2026.
Still coming:
The January 2027 date is the one to build habits for now: a six-month qualifying period with uncapped awards means a probation period stops being the safety net it has been. That is employment law rather than accounting, and we would point you at a specialist — but it changes how a first hire should be structured this year.
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Yes, for absences beginning on or after 6 April 2026. The Employment Rights Act 2025 removed the three waiting days, so statutory sick pay is payable from day one of absence rather than the fourth day. It also removed the lower earnings limit, so all eligible employees qualify regardless of what they earn. SSP is paid at 80% of normal weekly earnings or £123.25 a week, whichever is lower. Absences that started before 6 April 2026 continue under the old rules, so an absence straddling the date is handled under the regime in force when it began.
For a business employing five site operatives with an ordinary short-absence pattern, the extra cost is in the region of £700 to £800 a year. The arithmetic is that short one to three day absences used to fall entirely inside the waiting days and cost nothing, and now every one of them is payable from day one. At the £123.25 weekly cap a day is roughly £24.65 on a five-day week, so thirty additional paid days across a small workforce is around £740. It is not a large sum, but it is predictable, it did not exist before, and it scales directly with headcount.
Because of the shape of absence rather than the amount of it. The government's own costing attributes most of the roughly £400 million annual national increase to removing the waiting days rather than removing the lower earnings limit. Construction absences are frequently short — a bad back, a cut hand, a day after a heavy lift, a stomach bug — and those one, two and three day absences were precisely the ones that used to cost an employer nothing. A sector with many short absences and few long ones therefore absorbs proportionately more of the change than one with the opposite pattern.
It can be less. SSP is now the lower of 80% of normal weekly earnings and £123.25 a week. For a full-time site operative, 80% of earnings comfortably exceeds the cap, so the cap applies and SSP is £123.25 a week. For a low-hours worker the 80% figure may come out below the cap, and that lower amount is what is payable. The removal of the lower earnings limit is what brings those low-hours workers into the system at all — previously they could earn too little to qualify for any SSP whatsoever.
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