How Long Is Maternity Leave? UK Rights, Pay, Protection

All employees are entitled to up to 52 weeks of statutory maternity leave, regardless of length of service or hours worked. This is split into:

• Ordinary Maternity Leave (OML): the first 26 weeks
• Additional Maternity Leave (AML): the following 26 weeks
• You do not have to take the full 52 weeks, you can return earlier if you choose
• You must take at least 2 weeks after the birth (4 weeks if you work in a factory)
• The earliest you can usually start your leave is 11 weeks before the expected week of childbirth, and it starts the day after the birth if the baby is early
• Your employer may have a company maternity scheme that gives more than the statutory amount of leave and pay, but it cannot offer you less than the statutory amount

• ✗No: You do not qualify for Statutory Maternity Leave if you are a worker rather than an employee
• ✗No: You cannot get Statutory Maternity Leave if you have a child through surrogacy: you could get Statutory Adoption Leave and Pay instead

Northern Ireland: nidirect says Statutory Maternity Leave for employees is 52 weeks, made up of 26 weeks of Ordinary Maternity Leave and 26 weeks of Additional Maternity Leave, and that if you are an employee and give your employer the right notice you can take it no matter how long you have been with your employer, how many hours you work or how much you are paid.

Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP) is paid for up to 39 weeks:

If you are not eligible for SMP, GOV.UK says your employer must give you form SMP1 explaining why within 7 days of making their decision, and you may be eligible for Maternity Allowance instead. Our maternity pay calculator shows worked examples.

GOV.UK sets these notice rules for leave and for pay:

• Tell your employer at least 15 weeks before your due date
• Tell them when the baby is due and when you want to start your maternity leave, and they can ask for this in writing
• Your employer must write to you within 28 days confirming your start and end dates
• You can change your start date if you give 28 days' notice
• You must give 8 weeks' notice if you want to change your return to work date
• For SMP, tell your employer you want to stop work to have a baby and the day you want your SMP to start, giving at least 28 days' notice and proof that you are pregnant
• Give proof of the pregnancy within 21 days of your SMP start date: a letter from your doctor or midwife, or your MATB1 certificate, which doctors and midwives give you no more than 20 weeks before the due date

GOV.UK says your employment rights are protected while you are on Statutory Maternity Leave, including your right to pay rises, to build up (accrue) holiday and to return to work:

• ✓Yes: You are entitled to any pay rises and improvements in terms and conditions given during the leave
• ✓Yes: You continue to build up holiday entitlement and can take any holiday you have accrued before or after the leave
• ✓Yes: You keep the benefit of all the terms and conditions of your employment that would have applied if you had not been absent, other than terms about wages or salary
• ✓Yes: You can work up to 10 keeping in touch (KIT) days during your maternity leave, and taking them does not affect your right to maternity leave and pay

• ✗No: Pension contributions usually stop if a period of leave is unpaid, unless your contract says otherwise

Northern Ireland: nidirect says that if your employer contributes to an occupational pension scheme, they must continue their usual contributions for the whole time you are on ordinary maternity leave, for any time you are receiving Statutory Maternity Pay and for any time you are receiving contractual maternity pay.

Your return-to-work rights depend on how much leave you take:

• ✓Yes: If you take 26 weeks of maternity leave only, you have the right to return to the job you had before, with your seniority and pension rights as they would have been if you had not been absent, on terms and conditions not less favourable than if you had not been absent
• ✓Yes: If you take more than 26 weeks, you have the right to return to your job or, if it is not reasonably practicable for your employer to let you return to that job, to another job that is suitable for you and appropriate for you to do in the circumstances
• ✓Yes: You have the right to be offered a suitable alternative job, where one is available, if you are selected for redundancy while on maternity leave, even if other colleagues are more suitable for the role
• ✓Yes: You can request flexible working from your first day in a job

In its consultation response the government says it is introducing legislation which will make it unlawful to dismiss pregnant women, mothers on maternity leave, and mothers who return to work for at least a 6-month period after they return, except in specific circumstances, and that it intends the measures to come into force in October 2027.

Regulation 10 of the Maternity and Parental Leave etc. Regulations 1999 applies where it is not practicable by reason of redundancy to continue to employ you under your existing contract during the protected period of pregnancy, your statutory maternity leave period or the additional protected period. Where there is a suitable available vacancy, you are entitled to be offered alternative employment before your existing employment ends. The additional protected period begins the day after your maternity leave ends and ends 18 months after the first day of the expected week of childbirth (or 18 months after childbirth, if you notified your employer of the day it occurred).

GOV.UK says you and your partner may be able to share Shared Parental Leave (SPL) and Statutory Shared Parental Pay (ShPP) if you are eligible and you or your partner ends your maternity or adoption leave early:

• You can share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay between you
• You can use SPL to take leave in blocks separated by periods of work, or take it all in one go
• You can choose to be off work together or to stagger the leave and pay
• You or your partner must take less than the 52 weeks of maternity leave and use the rest as SPL, and take less than the 39 weeks of maternity pay (or Maternity Allowance) and use the rest as ShPP
• Statutory Shared Parental Pay is £194.32 a week or 90% of your average weekly earnings, whichever is lower

• ✗No: A mother cannot return to work before the end of the compulsory 2 weeks of maternity leave following the birth (4 weeks if she works in a factory)

Fathers and partners have a separate, shorter entitlement:

• Statutory Paternity Leave: up to 2 weeks, taken together or separately in one-week blocks, which must end within 52 weeks of the baby's birth (or the due date if the baby is early)
• Statutory Paternity Pay: £194.32 a week or 90% of average weekly earnings, whichever is lower
• You are eligible for Paternity Leave from the first day of employment
• For Paternity Pay you must have been continuously employed for at least 26 weeks up to the end of any day in the qualifying week, the 15th week before the baby is due, and earn an average of at least £129 a week
• Since 6 April 2026, if the mother, main adopter or main intended parent of a child dies, GOV.UK says the other partner can take unpaid Bereaved Partner's Paternity Leave from the day after the death, in one continuous block, for up to 52 weeks depending on when the death happened and when the child was born, placed or arrived

• ✗No: Your Paternity Leave cannot start before the birth

• Section 18 of the Equality Act 2010 makes it discrimination to treat you unfavourably because of your pregnancy, because of illness you suffer in the protected period as a result of the pregnancy, because you are on compulsory maternity leave, or because you are exercising or seeking to exercise the right to ordinary or additional maternity leave
• The protected period begins when the pregnancy begins and, if you have the right to ordinary and additional maternity leave, ends at the end of the additional maternity leave period or, if earlier, when you return to work after the pregnancy
• If you do not have a right to ordinary and additional maternity leave or to equivalent maternity leave, the protected period ends at the end of the period of 2 weeks beginning with the end of the pregnancy
• Acas says you can make a discrimination claim regardless of your employment status or how long you have worked for your employer

• ✗No: You cannot be selected for redundancy because of maternity leave, birth or pregnancy: GOV.UK says that would be classed as an unfair dismissal
• ✗No: In Great Britain, section 18(7) of the Equality Act 2010 says the sex discrimination provisions in section 13 do not apply to unfavourable treatment because of pregnancy or maternity leave

See the discrimination guide for the other protected characteristics, and the employment rights section for the rest of your rights at work.