The 5-minute payslip check
| Age | Minimum hourly rate from 1 April 2026 |
|---|
| 21 and over (National Living Wage) | £12.71 |
| 18 – 20 | £10.85 |
| 16 – 17 | £8.00 |
| Apprentices (under 19, or in year one) | £8.00 — after that, your age rate |
The check: take one pay period’s total pay, divide by the hours you actually worked — including travel between appointments, handovers, security checks, opening up, and required training. Below your age rate? You’re owed money. GOV.UK’s free minimum wage calculator does the maths for complex cases.
The five hidden traps
(1) Uniform & kit costs — if buying required uniform or tools drags that period’s pay below the minimum, that’s underpayment. (2) Unpaid “trial shifts” and training that are really work. (3) Unpaid travel time between jobs — care workers between visits especially. (4) The apprentice-rate trap — kept on £8.00 after year one or past 19. (5) Tips plugging the gap — they can’t count towards minimum wage, and since October 2024 the law requires 100% of tips to reach workers under a written policy.
Getting it back — three free routes
- One email to payroll. A surprising share of underpayment is genuine error. Put it in writing with your numbers; arrears must be made good — at the current rate, not the rate at the time, so historic underpayment grows until it’s fixed.
- Complain to the enforcement body — free and anonymous. Since April 2026 minimum-wage enforcement sits with the new Fair Work Agency (absorbing HMRC’s enforcement teams, alongside holiday pay and SSP). Use the GOV.UK pay-and-work-rights complaint route; investigators can audit the whole workforce, force full repayment at today’s rates, issue financial penalties, and publicly name the employer. Your name need never surface.
- The tribunal route — an unlawful-deduction-of-wages claim, free, started within 3 months less a day of the last underpayment (a series of deductions can be claimed with a 2-year backstop), after free ACAS early conciliation. Older money? A county-court contract claim reaches back 6 years.
You are protected
Dismissing or punishing a worker for asserting minimum-wage rights is unlawful — and itself a tribunal claim. Complaints can be anonymous, and ACAS (0300 123 1100) will talk anything through free before you decide.
Do this now
Run the payslip check tonight — total pay ÷ real hours, against the table above. Borderline or messy? The GOV.UK minimum wage calculator handles deductions and travel time.
Underpaid? Email payroll first; no fix within a pay cycle, complain on GOV.UK — it costs nothing, and the arrears come back at 2026 rates.
Also check
Low pay usually means unclaimed support:
Universal Credit tops up low earnings, and uniform and tool costs may earn a
tax refund. Two minutes on the
benefits check often finds more than the back pay.