Being told your job is at risk of redundancy is unsettling enough without also having to work out whether you’re being paid what you’re actually owed. The good news is that statutory redundancy pay follows a fixed formula, so it’s entirely possible to check your own numbers rather than just trusting whatever figure HR hands you. And there’s a fresh reason to pay attention in 2026: penalties for employers who skip proper redundancy consultation have just doubled, which changes the leverage employees have if the process isn’t followed correctly. Here’s a full breakdown of your redundancy pay UK rights, how the numbers are calculated, and what happens when an employer gets the process wrong.
Who Actually Qualifies for Statutory Redundancy Pay?
To qualify for statutory redundancy pay, you need at least two years of continuous service with the same employer, and your role needs to be made redundant in the genuine legal sense, meaning your employer no longer needs the work you were doing to be done, whether because of a business closure, a workplace closure, or a reduced need for employees doing your kind of role.
You’re generally still eligible whether you’re full-time, part-time, on a fixed-term contract, or accepting voluntary redundancy. What can affect your entitlement is if you’re offered suitable alternative employment and unreasonably turn it down, or if you’re dismissed for conduct reasons unrelated to the redundancy itself.
How Statutory Redundancy Pay Is Calculated
The formula itself is straightforward once you know the three ingredients: your age, your length of continuous service, and your weekly pay.
The Age-Based Multiplier
For each full year of service, you’re entitled to a set number of weeks’ pay based on how old you were during that year of service: half a week’s pay for each full year worked under age 22, one week’s pay for each full year worked between 22 and 40, and one and a half weeks’ pay for each full year worked at age 41 or above. Service is capped at 20 years for the purposes of this calculation, even if you’ve worked for your employer longer than that.
The Weekly Pay Cap
Your weekly pay is also capped for calculation purposes, and this figure is reviewed and typically increases every April. For redundancies with a dismissal date on or after 6 April 2026, the statutory weekly pay cap is £751, up from £719 the previous year. If your actual average weekly pay is below the cap, your real figure is used; if it’s above the cap, the calculation simply uses £751 regardless of how much more you actually earn. Applying these figures, the maximum possible statutory redundancy payment, for someone with the full 20 years of service all served at age 41 or older, works out to £22,530.
Statutory redundancy pay itself is tax-free, and it sits within a combined tax-free threshold of £30,000 that also covers any enhanced redundancy payment your employer chooses to offer on top of the statutory minimum.
Redundancy Consultation: What Your Employer Is Required to Do
Redundancy isn’t something an employer can simply announce and act on overnight, particularly where multiple roles are affected. Where an employer proposes to make 20 or more employees redundant at one establishment within a 90-day period, collective consultation rules apply. This means consulting with recognised trade union representatives or elected employee representatives before any dismissals take effect, and the consultation must begin within a set minimum timeframe depending on how many people are affected, running to a minimum of 30 days before the first dismissal for medium-scale redundancies, and 45 days for the largest ones.
Even outside of these collective thresholds, individual consultation is still expected as part of a fair redundancy process, giving you the chance to understand the selection criteria being used, ask questions, and potentially explore alternatives such as redeployment.
The Protective Award: Why 2026 Changed the Stakes
This is where the newsworthy part of this story comes in. If an employer fails to properly consult where the collective consultation rules apply, employees can claim what’s known as a protective award. Historically, this was capped at a maximum of 90 days’ pay per affected employee. As of 2026, that maximum has doubled to 180 days’ pay per employee, meaning consultation failures can now result in an award of up to six months’ pay for each person affected.
For employees, this is a meaningful shift. It means the financial consequences of a botched or rushed redundancy consultation are now significantly higher for employers, which in turn gives employees considerably more leverage if they believe proper consultation didn’t happen. If you were part of a group redundancy and the process felt rushed, informal, or like a formality rather than genuine consultation, it’s worth having that reviewed, because the protective award claim sits entirely separate from, and in addition to, your statutory redundancy pay.
What to Do If You Think You’ve Been Underpaid or Under-Consulted
Start by checking the basic facts: your exact length of continuous service, your age during each year of that service, and your average weekly pay over the relevant reference period. Run those figures through the formula above and compare them against what your employer has offered. If there’s a discrepancy, raise it in writing and ask for a breakdown of how they calculated your payment.
If you believe the collective consultation requirements weren’t followed properly, that’s a separate and potentially more valuable issue, and it’s worth getting advice on whether a protective award claim is available before too much time passes, since employment tribunal claims are subject to strict time limits.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much statutory redundancy pay am I entitled to?
It depends on your age, length of continuous service, and weekly pay, using a formula of half a week’s pay per year under 22, one week’s pay per year aged 22 to 40, and one and a half weeks’ pay per year aged 41 or over, up to a maximum of 20 years’ service and a capped weekly pay figure of £751 for dismissals on or after 6 April 2026.
Do I qualify for redundancy pay if I’ve worked less than two years?
Generally, no. Statutory redundancy pay requires at least two years of continuous service with your employer. If you’re made redundant before reaching that threshold, you won’t have a statutory redundancy pay entitlement, although your other redundancy rights, such as fair process and consultation where applicable, still apply.
What is a protective award and when can I claim one?
A protective award is compensation you can claim if your employer fails to properly consult during a collective redundancy process affecting 20 or more employees. As of 2026, the maximum protective award has doubled to 180 days’ pay per affected employee, making it a significant claim in its own right, separate from your statutory redundancy payment.
Is redundancy pay taxable?
Statutory redundancy pay is tax-free, and it forms part of a combined £30,000 tax-free threshold that also covers any enhanced redundancy pay your employer offers. Amounts above £30,000 are subject to income tax, though redundancy pay is generally exempt from employee National Insurance contributions regardless of the amount.
Redundancy is rarely a welcome conversation, but understanding exactly what you’re owed, and what your employer is legally required to do before making that decision, puts you in a far stronger position. With the protective award penalty now doubled, employers have more reason than ever to get redundancy consultation right, and employees have more reason to check whether they did.
