April 2025 employment law changes: Five-point checklist for HR

Published: 24 March 2025 | by Stephen Simpson, Acting Content Manager – Employment Law and Compliance at Brightmine

While the introduction of neonatal care leave and pay is the key change for HR professionals to get to grips with, there are other employment law changes in April 2025. These include increases to the national minimum wage rates; a rise in statutory redundancy pay; and the uprating of statutory sick pay and family-related pay.

30 March / 4 April: Publish your gender pay gap report

Organisations have 12 months to publish their gender pay gap figures from the relevant snapshot date – 31 March for the public sector and 5 April for the private and voluntary sectors.

This means that the gender pay gap reporting deadline is 30 March 2025 for public-sector employers and 4 April 2025 for private-sector and voluntary-sector employers.

Organisations must publish reports on their website and upload the information to the gender pay gap reporting portal on the GOV.UK website.

Employers can choose to provide a narrative around any gender pay gap, including providing an explanation for their pay gap and setting out what steps they are taking to reduce the gap.

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1 April: Comply with national minimum wage rises

The rates of the national minimum wage increase on 1 April 2025, including an increase of the main national minimum wage (the national living wage) from £11.44 to £12.21 per hour. In addition:

• the rate for workers aged at least 18 but under 21 rises from £8.60 to £10.00 per hour;
• the rate for workers aged 16 to 17 rises from £6.40 to £7.55 per hour; and
• the apprentice rate rises from £6.40 to £7.55 per hour.

Employers should check their pay rates against the new minimum wage rates to ensure that, where necessary, they increase remuneration for the first pay reference period beginning on or after 1 April 2025.

Dates for your diary

Our Dates for your diary feature provides a selection of key upcoming deadlines, celebrations and awareness days that you need to know about as an HR professional in the UK.

Events in April 2025 include International Children’s Book Day, World Health Day, On Your Feet Britain Day, Earth Day and the Easter bank holidays. Events in May include World Laughter Day, Deaf Awareness Week, Learning at Work Week, Armed Forces Day and International HR Day.

6 April: Update your statutory redundancy pay calculations

New limits on employment statutory redundancy pay come into force on 6 April 2025.

Employers that make employees redundant must pay those with two years’ service an amount based on the employee’s weekly pay, length of service and age.

The weekly pay is subject to a maximum amount, which is £719 from 6 April 2025 (increasing from £700).

HR professionals should ensure that calculations for statutory redundancy payments are made on the basis of this new maximum amount for redundancy dismissals on or after 6 April 2025.

6 April: Introduce procedure for taking neonatal care leave

A new right for parents to take up to 12 weeks’ neonatal care leave if their baby requires medical or palliative care is introduced on 6 April 2025. The right is available to the parents of children born on or after 6 April 2025.

Employers need to introduce a process for employees to be able to take this new type of leave, which is available to the parents of a child whose neonatal care starts within a period of 28 days (starting from the day after the child’s birth), where the child’s neonatal care lasts for a period of at least seven days (starting from the day after the care begins).

Employers should incorporate neonatal care leave into their family-friendly policies and procedures and ensure that parents facing this difficult situation are made aware of their right to take neonatal care leave.

The process for parents to take this type of leave must be made as easy as possible and explained in a sensitively worded way, including details of any additional support that your organisation offers.

6 April: Increase statutory sick pay and family-related pay

The weekly rate of statutory sick pay increases on 6 April 2025. The new rate is £118.75, up from £116.75.

The weekly rates of statutory maternity, adoption, paternity, shared parental and parental bereavement pay increase to £187.18, up from £184.03. The increases take effect on the first Sunday in April, which in 2025 is 6 April.

It is up to HR to make sure that staff on maternity, paternity, adoption, shared parental and parental bereavement leave, and staff on sick leave, are paid these statutory minimum rates.

HR professionals also need to review their policies and procedures that mention the rates, such as their maternity policies and sickness absence procedures.

What else is happening?

• Immigration: From 2 April 2025, all eligible European nationals, who do not hold any other UK visa, must hold an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) if travelling to the UK. The application process opened on 5 March 2025.
• IR35: Increases to the turnover and balance sheet thresholds for financial years beginning on or after 6 April 2025 mean that some organisations will fall out of the scope of the IR35 rules.
• Employment tribunal awards: On 6 April 2025, the employment tribunal award limits increase. These include the basic award for unfair dismissal going up from £8,533 to £8,763 and the compensatory award for unfair dismissal going up from £115,115 to £118,223.
• State pension: On 7 April 2025, the basic state pension increases from £169.50 to £176.45 a week and the new state pension will increase from £221.20 to £230.25.