April Good News – Increase in Minimum Wage Rates

All of this lovely weather has started us thinking of spring and of the upcoming April statutory minimum wage increases for 2019/20.   Statutory means, by statute, i.e. it’s the law and you will never be paid less than this by Option A and applies to workers on the National Minimum Wage, National Living Wage or Scottish Agricultural Wage in the UK.

Firstly, for those of you working in England the National Minimum Wage (NMW), for those under 25, will increase from £7.38ph to £7.70ph.  The National Living Wage (NLW), for people over 25, will rise from £7.83ph to £8.21ph. There are lower statutory rates for under 21-year olds but usually we will pay the NMW rate as a minimum.

If you will be working in Scotland the same NMW and NLW rates will apply unless you work in agriculture, horticulture or forestry.  The rates for this type of work are controlled by the Scottish Agricultural Wages Board (SAWB). The minimum agricultural rate is the same as the NLW at £8.21ph, no matter how old you are, and overtime is paid at time-and-one-half, £12.31ph. This overtime is paid after 8 hours per day or 48 hours per week.

Lastly, in line with the wage increase the accommodation offset, i.e. how much an employer can deduct for providing accommodation, has increased to £7.55 per day or £52.85 per week.

The rate increases take effect at the start of the first full pay cycle in April, which will be the week beginning, Sunday 7th April 2019.

There will some other changes occurring around the same time concerning pensions and tax codes, with pensions contributions increasing to 3% but we will communicate this in a separate blog update shortly.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call your consultant or local office for more information https://www.optiona.co.uk/contact/.