Search minimum salary UK and you get an hourly figure back, because an hourly figure is the only wage floor British law sets. There is no statutory annual minimum salary in UK employment law. From 1 April 2026 the National Living Wage is £12.71 an hour for workers aged 21 and over, with lower National Minimum Wage rates below that age and an apprentice rate of £8.00.
Two names, one statute. The National Minimum Wage is the umbrella entitlement covering almost every worker at or above school leaving age, and the National Living Wage is the top band of that same system, the rate that applies once a worker turns 21.
Fabric is an AI hiring platform: its agents handle sourcing, outreach, screening, scheduling and Round 1 interviews. Payroll sits outside what the product does. This guide exists because hiring teams quote hourly rates in job adverts and offer conversations, and quoting last year's rate in April is an expensive habit.
This is not legal advice. The minimum wage is UK statute, every rate changes on 1 April, and enforcement changed hands in 2026. Check the current position on GOV.UK and take advice from employment counsel qualified in the jurisdiction you are hiring in before acting on anything here. Every figure below was checked against GOV.UK on 10 August 2026.
Minimum salary UK: what the law actually sets
The UK sets a minimum salary per hour and nothing else. GOV.UK publishes every minimum wage figure per hour, by age band, with no annual or monthly equivalent attached to any of them. There is no legal answer to the question of a yearly minimum wage in the UK, only a rate and however many hours the worker works.
The arithmetic follows from there. A worker aged 21 or over on £12.71 an hour doing 40 hours comes to £508.40 gross for that week. Any monthly UK minimum wage figure is a projection built on assumed hours, and carries no legal weight if the real hours differ.
That matters most for salaried staff. Compliance is tested per pay reference period, meaning the period the worker is paid for, which GOV.UK caps at one calendar month, so a salaried employee whose hours spike in a busy month can drop under the floor on a comfortable annual figure. For what reaches the employee's account after deductions, see gross pay versus net pay.
UK minimum wage rates from 1 April 2026, by age
Four rates apply from 1 April 2026, and the worker's age is the whole of the test. Workers aged 21 and over get the National Living Wage of £12.71 an hour. Workers aged 18 to 20 get £10.85. Workers under 18 who are above school leaving age get £8.00, and that same £8.00 is the apprentice rate. GOV.UK confirms these figures in both the minimum wage rates table and the rates and thresholds guidance for the 2026 to 2027 tax year, last updated on 5 June 2026.
Size of employer makes no difference. GOV.UK is blunt on the point: it does not matter how small an employer is, they still have to pay the correct minimum wage. The National Minimum Wage covers the whole country, with the same rates applying across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, because this is national statute rather than a devolved matter.
| Band | From 1 April 2026 | 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Aged 21 and over (National Living Wage) | £12.71 | £12.21 |
| Aged 18 to 20 | £10.85 | £10.00 |
| Under 18 (above school leaving age) | £8.00 | £7.55 |
| Apprentice rate | £8.00 | £7.55 |
| Accommodation offset (daily) | £11.10 | £10.66 |
The apprentice rate, and when it stops applying
The apprentice rate is the band employers get wrong most often. GOV.UK applies it to an apprentice under 19, or aged 19 or over and in the first year of their apprenticeship with the current employer. After that first year, a 19 or over apprentice moves to the rate for their age group.
The move takes effect from the first day of the pay reference period beginning on or after the birthday or the first year anniversary, so payroll needs both dates on file. The same timing rule governs a worker crossing into the 18 to 20 or 21 and over band.
How the rates change each April
Every rate rises on 1 April, and the change is neither optional nor phased. The Low Pay Commission recommends the figures, government accepts or adjusts them, and amendment regulations bring them into force. That fixed date is why a page still headlined with 2024 rates can sit on page one of Google.
GOV.UK's checklist of common causes of underpayment puts failure to apply the annual increase on its list, next to unpaid handover time, unpaid security checks and unpaid training. Rates for 1 April 2027 appear on GOV.UK once the regulations are laid.
What counts toward pay for the minimum wage calculation
Minimum wage pay is not the same number as gross pay, and that gap is where most underpayment hides. GOV.UK's calculation guidance counts basic pay, commission earned in the period, bonus payments, and incentive payments that relate solely to the worker's own performance. Allowances count only where they have been consolidated into standard pay.
Everything else is stripped out before the hourly rate is tested. The calculation runs across the pay reference period, meaning the period the worker is paid for, up to a maximum of one calendar month. Divide qualifying pay by qualifying hours for that period, and the result has to clear the band that applies to that worker's age. A single month below the line is a breach, whatever the annual average looks like. For how these components sit inside a wider pay structure, see Fabric's guide to compensation and payroll.
Excluded from the calculation:
- tips, gratuities, service charges and cover charges
- the premium element of overtime or shift pay, meaning the amount by which the enhanced rate exceeds the basic rate
- benefits in kind, even where they carry a monetary value
- loans, advances of wages, pension payments and redundancy payments
- shares, share options and rewards under staff suggestion schemes
Deductions and the accommodation offset
A deduction for expenses actually incurred in connection with the employment always reduces minimum wage pay: uniforms bought unreimbursed, tools and protective equipment needed for the job, required training costs, employer arranged transport. A voluntary purchase unconnected to the job does not.
Accommodation is the one benefit in kind that counts toward minimum wage pay, and only up to a cap. From April 2026 the accommodation offset is £11.10 a day and £77.70 a week, up from £10.66 and £74.62. Charge above it and the excess comes off the pay that counts.
Which hours have to be paid
Training time, business travel time and time at the workplace where the worker must be available all count. Rest breaks, holidays, sick leave, family leave and the ordinary commute do not. Sleep-in shifts count only for hours the worker is awake for the purposes of working, and sick absence runs under the separate Statutory Sick Pay scheme.
Record keeping, and the 14 day rule
The record keeping duty runs longer than most payroll teams expect. GOV.UK requires employers to keep sufficient records to show the minimum wage is being paid for every pay reference period each worker works, and since 1 April 2021 those records must be kept for at least 6 years after the end of the pay reference period following the one they cover. Records can be paper or digital, but they have to be producible for a single pay reference period as one document.
Workers have their own right of access. A worker with reasonable grounds to believe they may not have been paid the minimum wage can ask in writing to see the records relating to them, and you must produce them within 14 days or within a longer period you agree with them. Missing that deadline is a separate problem from whether the pay was right.
What a defensible record looks like
- total pay and total hours worked per worker, per pay reference period
- the age band applied and the date any band change took effect
- apprenticeship start dates and first year anniversary dates
- deductions taken, and what each one was for
- accommodation charges, the offset applied, and the date each April uprating went live
Underpayment, the Fair Work Agency and public naming
Enforcement changed hands in 2026, and most guidance online has not caught up. GOV.UK withdrew its long-standing minimum wage enforcement policy on 7 April 2026, when the Fair Work Agency began operating and took over responsibility for enforcing the National Minimum Wage. The Fair Work Agency enforcement statement confirms that the Secretary of State has arranged for HMRC officers to act as Fair Work Agency enforcement officers, so the people knocking on the door are the same, under a new badge.
The money is unforgiving. A notice of underpayment requires arrears to be paid to each named worker plus a penalty of 200% of the total underpayment, subject to a £100 minimum and a maximum of £20,000 per worker. Underpaying a hundred people by a small amount each is therefore a large number. The penalty is halved if the unpaid wages and half the penalty are paid within 14 days.
Arrears are recalculated at today's rate
Arrears are not settled at the rate that applied when the underpayment happened. Where the current rate is higher, section 17(4) of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 requires arrears to be calculated by reference to the current rate, so a shortfall from three upratings ago is repaid at 2026 money.
The naming scheme
The Fair Work Agency refers employers to the Department for Business and Trade for public naming once the case closure letter is issued. Naming applies where arrears reach £500, or more than £100 where the employer already has another notice of underpayment from the previous 6 years, an outstanding enforcement order, or an unspent conviction for a minimum wage offence. An employer receiving a notification of naming has 14 days from the date on the letter to make written representations to DBT, and the exemptions are narrow. Failing to pay the correct rate, or faking payment records, is also a criminal offence.
This is UK law, and the US system is separate
None of the above applies to a US hire. The United States runs its own federal floor under the Fair Labor Standards Act, administered by the US Department of Labor, and individual states set their own minimums on top of it. Where a state rate and the federal rate both apply, the employee gets the higher of the two. There is no US equivalent of the National Living Wage and no age band structure resembling the UK one.
The structures diverge further than the numbers suggest. US minimum wage law is entangled with the exempt and non-exempt classification that decides overtime entitlement, a distinction with no UK counterpart. Tipped employees can be paid a lower cash wage in some US states, whereas UK tips do not count toward the minimum wage at all. Hiring in both countries means two policy documents and two payroll calculations, with the US side read through exempt versus non-exempt classification.
Related posts
- Compensation and payroll: the complete HR guide
- Gross pay vs. net pay: what's the difference?
- Pay scales and salary grades: how to build a compensation structure
- Exempt vs. non-exempt employees: what's the difference?
- Back pay: what employers owe and how to calculate it
FAQ
What is the minimum annual UK salary?
There is no statutory annual minimum salary in the UK. The floor is hourly, set at £12.71 for workers aged 21 and over from 1 April 2026, so any annual figure depends entirely on how many hours the worker actually works.
How much is 40 hours a week minimum wage in the UK?
At the National Living Wage rate of £12.71 an hour, 40 hours comes to £508.40 gross before tax and National Insurance. Workers under 21 are on lower rates, so the same 40 hours pays less.
Who gets the minimum wage?
Almost all workers at or above school leaving age, including part time, casual, agency, agricultural and foreign workers, with the National Living Wage applying from age 21. GOV.UK excludes self employed people, company directors, volunteers, family members living in the employer's home, share fishermen and a short list of others.
When does the minimum wage increase in the UK?
On 1 April every year. The current rates took effect on 1 April 2026, and failing to apply the new rate from that date is one of the causes of underpayment GOV.UK lists for employers.
What is the apprentice rate?
£8.00 an hour from 1 April 2026. It applies to apprentices under 19, and to apprentices aged 19 or over who are still in the first year of their apprenticeship.
What doesn't count towards the National Minimum Wage?
Tips, gratuities, service charges and cover charges do not count, and neither does the premium element of overtime or shift pay. Benefits in kind, loans, advances of wages, pension payments and redundancy payments are excluded too.
What's the difference between the National Living Wage and the Living Wage?
The National Living Wage is the statutory rate for workers aged 21 and over, currently £12.71 an hour, and it is legally enforceable. The real Living Wage is a voluntary rate set by the Living Wage Foundation that employers choose to sign up to.