
April 2025 employment law changes: Five-point checklist for HR
April 2025 employment law changes are on the horizon. In this resource, we cover the key changes for which HR should prepare.

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.
In this resource:
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.

Deliver your pay gap report in minutes not days
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.
Essential resources in the HR & Compliance Centre | Start your FREE trial today
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.
Essential resources in the HR & Compliance Centre | Start your FREE trial today
On your radar: Tracking employment law developments
At a time when HR professionals may feel overwhelmed by the volume of changes on the horizon, particularly those being introduced via the Employment Rights Bill in the next few years, our “On your radar” feature gives HR professionals an overview of upcoming employment law developments.
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.
Essential resources in the HR & Compliance Centre | Start your FREE trial today
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.
Essential resources in the HR & Compliance Centre | Start your FREE trial today
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.

Start your free trial today
Register today to gain free 7-day access to the Brightmine HR & Compliance Centre and stay up to date, compliant and save valuable time
About the author

Stephen Simpson
Acting Content Manager – Employment Law and Compliance, Brightmine
Stephen is an acting content manager – employment law and compliance who has worked on the Brightmine employment law and leading practice resources for over 20 years. After growing up in Northern Ireland in the 1980s, he trained as a solicitor in England in the 1990s but soon moved into legal publishing. He was among the first recruits to Brightmine in the year before it was launched as XpertHR in 2002.
Stephen has worked on a wide range of employment law and leading practice resources, including overseeing the creation and expansion of the HR templates resource types (Policies and procedures, Letters and forms, and Contract clauses). He has written up over 1,000 reports on employment law cases and created practical guidance on a range of HR issues for the Commentary & insights tool. He also had a stint working on Personnel Today.
Connect with Stephen on LinkedIn.
Related resources
Results : 9 of 244