Three areas of employment law changed significantly for UK employers between 2024 and 2026, and a fourth is still moving. Statutory sick pay rules changed on 6 April 2026, bringing the biggest overhaul of SSP since 1983. The right to request flexible working became a day-one right in April 2024. And the right to disconnect, while not yet law, is moving closer to a Code of Practice that could make non-compliance a factor in tribunal compensation awards. 

None of these changes require a full-time HR team to handle. But each one requires you to review your policies, update your contracts, and make sure your managers are handling day-to-day situations consistently. This guide covers what changed, what it means for your business, and what you need to do about it. 

Statutory sick pay changes: what every UK employer needs to know 

The statutory sick pay changes that came into force on 6 April 2026 are the biggest reform to SSP since the system was introduced in 1983. Two changes affect almost every employer in the UK. 

SSP is now payable from day one 

SSP used to begin from the fourth qualifying day of absence, meaning a worker had to be off for three full days before any statutory payment was triggered. From 6 April 2026, SSP is payable from the first qualifying day. The new statutory sick pay rules mean that a single day of sickness absence, if the employee meets the eligibility criteria, now triggers an SSP entitlement. 

This changes how you manage and record short-term absences. Previously, a one or two-day absence had no SSP cost attached to it. Now it does. Your payroll process needs to capture every qualifying absence from day one, regardless of how short it is. 

The lower earnings limit no longer applies 

Previously, workers had to earn at least £125 per week (the lower earnings limit in 2025/26) to qualify for SSP. That threshold has been removed. Workers now qualify based on their employment status, not their earnings level. The government estimates that around 1.3 million low-paid workers gain access to SSP for the first time as a result of this change. 

For businesses with large numbers of part-time, lower-paid or zero-hours workers, this is the more significant of the two changes. Staff who would previously have been excluded from SSP entirely now qualify from day one of any sickness absence. 

The new SSP rate and calculation 

The flat weekly SSP rate increased from £118.75 to £123.25 per week on 6 April 2026. For workers whose average weekly earnings fall below the flat rate, SSP is calculated at 80 percent of their average earnings rather than the flat statutory rate. This earnings-linked calculation is new and means lower-paid employees receive a proportionate payment rather than the full flat rate. 

The government estimates the total additional cost to UK employers at around £450 million per year, which averages out at roughly £15 per employee. Understanding the changes to sick pay and factoring them into your budget and absence management approach is worthwhile before costs start to accumulate. For businesses with a high proportion of lower-paid staff, the actual impact will be higher than that average suggests. 

How to update your statutory sick pay policy 

The statutory sick pay changes require you to review three things: your sickness absence policy, your employment contracts, and your payroll setup. 

Sickness absence policy 

Any reference to a three-day qualifying period is now incorrect and should be removed. Your statutory sick pay policy needs to reflect that SSP is payable from day one of a qualifying absence. If your policy includes a process for recording short absences separately from longer ones, review whether that process still makes sense now that all qualifying absences trigger SSP. 

Return-to-work conversations are good practice after any absence, not just extended ones. With day-one SSP making short absences more visible and more costly, consistent absence management matters more than it did before. Use return-to-work conversations to provide early support and to identify patterns before they develop into longer-term problems. 

Employment contracts 

Contracts that state a fixed SSP rate, reference the old lower earnings limit, or describe the three-day waiting period need to be updated. The same applies to any enhanced sick pay clause drafted around the assumption that the waiting period existed. A policy that says "we will pay enhanced pay for the first three days and SSP from day four" now needs rethinking, since SSP starts from day one. 

Payroll systems 

Your payroll needs to calculate SSP from day one using either the flat rate of £123.25 or 80 percent of average weekly earnings, whichever is lower. If you manage payroll manually or through a basic system, check that it has been updated for the new rules. A transitional protection applies where an employee was already off sick before 6 April 2026, so the new calculation does not reduce SSP mid-absence for those cases. 

Flexible working hours policy: what changed in April 2024 

The right to request flexible working became a day-one right in April 2024, under changes introduced by the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023. Before that, an employee needed 26 weeks of continuous service before making a statutory request. Now they can do so from their first day. 

This is a right to request, not a right to receive. Employees can ask for a change to their hours, their location, or their working pattern. Employers still have the right to refuse on one of eight statutory grounds: burden of additional costs, detrimental effect on customer demand, inability to reorganise existing staff, inability to recruit additional staff, detrimental impact on quality, detrimental impact on performance, insufficiency of work during the proposed hours, or planned structural changes. 

Alongside the day-one right, April 2024 brought three other changes to the flexible working process: 

• Employees can now make two statutory requests in any 12-month period, up from one. 

• The flexible working request time limit for employers to respond was cut from three months to two months. 

• Employers must consult with the employee before refusing a request, even if the decision to refuse is already made. You cannot simply reject a request without a conversation. You need to discuss it, consider alternatives, and explain your reasoning. 

What your flexible working hours policy should cover 

A flexible working hours policy tells your team what types of flexible working the business considers, how to make a request, how the business will handle it, and what happens next. A policy that does not reflect the April 2024 changes is out of date. At a minimum, it should cover: 

• What forms of flexible working the business will consider: remote working, compressed hours, part-time, flexitime, staggered hours, job share, term-time only working. 

• Who the policy applies to: all employees from day one of employment. 

• How to make a statutory request in writing. 

• The consultation step must happen before any refusal. 

• The two-month timeline for a final decision, including any appeal, unless both parties agree in writing to a longer period. 

• The grounds on which a request may be refused and how that decision will be explained to the employee. 

• How trial periods work if the business wants to test an arrangement before committing to a permanent change. 

What is coming next on flexible working 

The Employment Rights Act 2025 will introduce an objective reasonableness test for refusing flexible working requests. Under the current rules, an employer can reject a request if they genuinely believe one of the eight statutory grounds applies. Under the new standard, that belief will need to be objectively justifiable. 

The employer will need to explain not just which ground they are relying on, but why it is reasonable to refuse the request on that specific ground in the particular circumstances. Employment tribunals will then assess whether the refusal was objectively reasonable, rather than simply whether the employer followed the correct process. 

Where a refusal is found to be unreasonable, or where the employer fails to explain their reasoning properly, a tribunal can order the employer to reconsider and award compensation of up to eight weeks' pay, currently capped at £719 per week. The government consultation on these changes closed on 30 April 2026, and implementation is expected in 2027. 

For SMEs, this is a signal to build genuine, documented consideration of flexible working requests into your process now rather than adapting under pressure when the new standard applies. Consistent consultation, clear reasoning, and documented decisions will stand up far better under an objective test than decisions made on the spot. 

Right to disconnect UK: where the law stands in 2026 

The right to disconnect UK was one of Labour's original employment commitments when it came into government. The plan was to give workers a formal right to switch off from work-related communications outside of contracted hours, backed by a Code of Practice. 

In spring 2025, the right to disconnect was removed from the Employment Rights Bill. The government cited concerns about the regulatory burden on businesses, and SMEs were specifically mentioned as a factor in that decision. What remained was a commitment to introduce a Code of Practice comparable to the ACAS codes on disciplinary and grievance procedures. 

A Code of Practice under this model would mean employees cannot bring a standalone claim for breach of it, but employment tribunals could take non-compliance into account when calculating compensation in related claims. Under the ACAS disciplinary code, for example, non-compliance can result in an uplift of up to 25 percent on a compensation award. The right-to-disconnect Code is expected to work similarly. 

As of May 2026, the government has not yet begun the consultation process it said it would launch in autumn 2025. The Code is still expected, but the timeline is unconfirmed. 

What the right to disconnect directive means 

The right to disconnect directive refers to the European Parliament's 2021 resolution calling on EU member states to introduce legislation protecting workers from having to be contactable outside contracted hours. Countries including Ireland, Belgium, France and Portugal have introduced formal laws. As a post-Brexit country, the UK is not bound by this directive, but it has directly influenced the domestic debate and the government's original commitment to a right to switch off. 

What UK law already requires on working hours 

A formal right to disconnect may not be law yet, but several existing obligations already bear on how you manage out-of-hours contact. 

Working Time Regulations 1998 

The Working Time Regulations set three baseline protections that apply to all workers: 

• Workers are entitled to 11 consecutive hours of rest in every 24-hour period. 

• Workers are entitled to at least 24 hours of rest in every seven-day period, or 48 hours in every 14 days. 

• The average working week, calculated over a 17-week reference period, must not exceed 48 hours unless the worker has signed a written opt-out. 

If your managers are routinely contacting staff outside contracted hours in ways that cut into daily or weekly rest periods, you may already be in breach of these regulations. The regulations apply regardless of where the work takes place, including remote and hybrid workers. 

Employer duty of care 

Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, employers have a duty to assess and manage workplace risks, and that includes mental health risks. If a culture of out-of-hours contact is contributing to stress, anxiety or burnout among your team, and you have not taken steps to address it, you could face personal injury claims. 

The scale of the problem in UK workplaces is significant. Around 63 percent of UK employees now show symptoms of burnout, up from 51 percent two years ago. In 2022/23, 875,000 workers suffered from work-related stress, depression or anxiety, resulting in 17.1 million working days lost. A culture that blurs the boundary between work time and personal time is one of the contributing factors. 

Building a right-to-disconnect policy before the Code arrives 

You do not need to wait for a Code of Practice to take action. Introducing a policy now protects your team, reduces absence caused by stress and burnout, and puts you in a far stronger position when the Code eventually lands. 

A good policy covers: 

• What contracted working hours are for each role. 

• Whether out-of-hours contact is ever expected and, if so, under what specific circumstances. 

• What out-of-hours communications mean in practice: whether staff are expected to read and respond, or whether a message sent outside hours simply waits until the next working day. 

• How employees can raise concerns about out-of-hours contact without fear of detriment. 

• What managers can and cannot do outside contracted hours, and how they should handle urgent situations where contact is genuinely necessary. 

• How the policy interacts with on-call arrangements or client-facing roles where some out-of-hours availability is a legitimate part of the job. 

The key is consistency between the policy and what your managers do day to day. A policy that says no contact is expected outside working hours provides no protection if managers are routinely sending messages at 10 pm and expecting responses by morning. Train your managers on the policy and on what good workload management looks like in practice. 

Where a role does require genuine out-of-hours availability, document it clearly in the employment contract or in a separate written agreement, with appropriate compensation. That is a legitimate arrangement. An unwritten expectation that all staff should be reachable at all times, without any contractual basis, is the situation the incoming Code is designed to address. 

What to act on now and what to plan for 

Here is a clear summary of where each change sits and what it requires from you. 

• Act now on SSP: update your sickness absence policy and employment contracts to remove any reference to the three-day waiting period or the lower earnings limit. Confirm your payroll is calculating SSP from day one using the correct rate and earnings-linked calculation. 

• Act now on flexible working: confirm your flexible working hours policy reflects the April 2024 changes, including the day-one right, the two-month response window, two requests per year, and mandatory consultation before any refusal. 

• Plan for 2027 on flexible working: the objective reasonableness test is coming. Build documented, evidence-led decision-making into your process now. 

• Act ahead on disconnect: introduce a right-to-disconnect policy, review your Working Time Regulations compliance for remote and hybrid workers, and make sure you have a risk assessment covering work-related stress. 

Frequently asked questions 

What are the main statutory sick pay changes from 6 April 2026? 

SSP is now payable from day one of sickness absence, removing the three-day waiting period. The lower earnings limit, previously £125 per week in 2025/26, has been removed, so all eligible workers qualify regardless of how much they earn. The weekly rate is the lower of £123.25 per week or 80 percent of average weekly earnings. Any sickness absence policy, employee handbook or employment contract that references the old rules needs to be updated now. 

What are the changes to statutory sick pay for employers with lower-paid staff? 

For employers with lower-paid workers, the removal of the lower earnings limit is the significant change. Around 1.3 million workers who previously did not qualify for SSP now do. Those workers also receive SSP calculated at 80 percent of their average weekly earnings rather than the flat rate. The government estimates total additional employer costs of around £450 million per year across the UK. 

What is the flexible working request time limit for employers? 

Since April 2024, employers must respond to a statutory flexible working request, including any appeal, within two months of receiving it. Both parties can agree in writing to extend this period. Under the Employment Rights Act 2025 changes expected in 2027, employers will also need to show that any refusal is objectively reasonable, not just that they considered one of the eight permitted grounds. 

Do UK employees have a legal right to disconnect? 

Not yet. The right to disconnect was removed from the Employment Rights Bill in spring 2025. The government committed to introducing a Code of Practice, which would allow tribunals to factor non-compliance into compensation calculations in related claims. The consultation on the Code has not yet started. In the meantime, the Working Time Regulations 1998 and the employer's duty of care under health and safety law already place real obligations on employers around working hours and out-of-hours contact. 

What is the right to disconnect directive and does it apply in the UK? 

The right to disconnect directive refers to the European Parliament's 2021 resolution calling on EU member states to introduce laws giving workers the right to switch off from work outside contracted hours without facing negative consequences. Countries including Ireland, Belgium and France have introduced formal legislation under this framework. As a post-Brexit country, the UK is not bound by this directive, but it has shaped the domestic debate and the government's original commitment to a right to switch off. 

Three changes. One question: Is your business ready? 

SSP has already changed. Flexible working rules changed in 2024. A right-to-disconnect Code of Practice is on its way. If you are not sure your policies, contracts and processes reflect where the law stands right now, there are two ways The HR Doctor can help. 

The Compliance Confidence Kit 

Built specifically for UK SMEs, the Compliance Confidence Kit gives you the policy templates, compliance checklists and step-by-step update guides you need to close the gaps covered in this article. It includes an updated sickness absence policy, a flexible working request template, a right-to-disconnect policy framework, and more. Everything you need to get your documents in line with current employment law, in one place. Stop guessing and start ticking boxes. 

Start by taking our Free HR Health Check.