Pregnancy sick leave in the UK: sick pay, appointments and the 4-week trap

Statutory Sick Pay: the 2026 to 2027 numbers

Start with the figure, because everything else hangs off it. If you are eligible you can get £123.25 a week Statutory Sick Pay, or 80% of your normal weekly earnings, whichever is lower. It is paid by your employer for up to 28 weeks.

HMRC states that this weekly rate is the rate for 2026 to 2027, and that the figures apply from 6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027. If you are reading this in a later tax year, check the current rate rather than assuming.

You cannot get less than the statutory amount, though you can get more if your employer runs an occupational sick pay scheme, so check your contract. Your employer works out what you get using your average weekly earnings over an 8-week period, and you still qualify if you started recently and have not yet had 8 weeks' pay.

Eligibility, as GOV.UK states it now

To qualify for SSP you must be classed as an employee, have done some work for your employer, and have been ill for at least one full working day. HMRC's employer guidance says the daily rate applies for each day off work from the first day of illness.

That is worth flagging for anyone working from an older article. The waiting-day and earnings-floor rules that used to appear in guides are not what GOV.UK sets out today, so use the live page rather than a remembered rule.

You will not qualify if you have already had the maximum 28 weeks of SSP, or if you are getting Statutory Maternity Pay. You need a fit note if you are off for more than 7 days in a row, including non-working days. Periods of sickness more than one full working day and 8 weeks or less apart count as linked, and you stop being eligible if linked periods run for more than 3 years.

Time off for antenatal care is a separate right, and it is paid

This is the entitlement people most often burn sick leave on unnecessarily. GOV.UK is explicit: employers must give pregnant employees time off for antenatal care and pay their normal rate for that time off. Not statutory sick pay. Your normal rate.

Antenatal care is not just medical appointments; it can also include antenatal or parenting classes if a doctor or midwife has recommended them. The father or the pregnant woman's partner has the right to unpaid time off work to go to 2 antenatal appointments.

One condition: employees cannot take time off for antenatal appointments until they have told the employer about the pregnancy.

The four-week rule that decides itself

Here is the one that costs people weeks of leave without them realising it was a decision. Maternity leave and Statutory Maternity Pay will start automatically if you are off work for a pregnancy-related illness in the 4 weeks before the baby is due, and GOV.UK adds that it does not matter what has been previously agreed.

So a fortnight of pregnancy-related sickness at 37 weeks is not a fortnight of sick leave. It converts your maternity leave start date, and every week of leave you had planned to take after the birth shifts backwards. If you are close to your due date and unwell, that arithmetic is worth doing before you call in sick.

Note the wording: pregnancy-related illness, and only in those last four weeks. Sickness earlier in pregnancy, or unrelated sickness in the last four weeks, does not trigger it.

Health and safety: suspension on full pay

When you tell your employer you are pregnant, they should assess the risks to you and your baby. If they cannot remove a risk, for example by offering suitable alternative work, GOV.UK says the employer should suspend the employee on full pay.

Full pay, not sick pay. If your job has become unsafe and no alternative is offered, being signed off sick is the wrong outcome and it costs you money. If you think you are at risk and your employer disagrees, GOV.UK suggests talking to your health and safety or trade union representative, and then your doctor or the Health and Safety Executive.

Discrimination, briefly

Pregnancy-related sickness absence sits inside a protected area. Employers cannot change a pregnant employee's contract terms without agreement, and pregnancy and maternity is a protected characteristic. If pregnancy-related absence is being counted against you in an attendance procedure, that is worth taking advice on rather than accepting.

What we cannot tell you

Whether your employer's own sick pay scheme is more generous than SSP, and how it treats pregnancy-related absence, is contractual and varies by employer. Check your contract or staff handbook. If SSP ends or you do not qualify, your employer must send you form SSP1, and you may be able to claim Universal Credit or Employment and Support Allowance instead.

The order to do things in

Tell your employer you are pregnant, because several rights only start then. Book antenatal appointments as paid time off rather than sick leave. Ask for the risk assessment in writing. And if you become unwell in the last month, ask explicitly whether the absence is being recorded as pregnancy-related, because that single word decides when your maternity leave begins.

If SSP runs out or you never qualified

If your SSP is ending, your employer must send you form SSP1. If you are not eligible in the first place, they must also send you SSP1, and you can use it to support an application for Universal Credit or Employment and Support Allowance instead.

Ask for SSP1 rather than waiting for it. The claim you make next depends on it, and delays in issuing it delay the money.

A worked example of linked periods

Suppose you are off for four days with pregnancy sickness in March, back at work, then off again for a week in late April. Because both periods lasted more than one full working day and were eight weeks or less apart, they count as linked, and they draw on the same 28-week entitlement rather than starting a fresh one.

For most pregnancies that is academic, because 28 weeks is longer than the sickness is likely to last. It matters if you have a long-running condition alongside the pregnancy, in which case the 28 weeks and the three-year rule on continuous linked periods are worth tracking with your employer.