Our Contractor Umbrella Guide to Your Maternity Rights

A lot of people, especially women, might be thinking about the maternity rights of contractors working in umbrella companies. For us here at Comparison Contractor, it is something we believe deserves its own article. So, without further ado. Here is our article on the contractor umbrella guide to your maternity rights.

All in all, you can claim up to 52 weeks of maternity leave. This is then broken into two different sections, Ordinary Maternity Leave which equates to the first 26 week. After this you have Additional Maternity Leave which is then the additional 26 weeks.

One thing to note is that in order to qualify for statutory maternity pay, you will need to have earned at least £111 a week depending on your field of expertise this can be different. You will also have been required to have worked at least 26 weeks until the 15^th week before your baby is due to come into the world.

Being paid statutory maternity pay is also different and split into 2 sections. For example, the first 6 weeks that is paid by a contractor umbrella company is providing 90% of your average weekly earnings. After this for the following 33 weeks you will receive either 90% of your earnings or £145 of your average weekly earnings and this depends on which is the lowest amount. Of course, in the United Kingdom both of these are subject to tax and national insurance contributions.

The ability to start claiming for statutory maternity pay can begin eleven weeks before your baby is due. If there is a chance that your baby might be earlier then you can claim statutory maternity pay the day after childbirth.

The way you receive pay is through the PAYE system, you will also be deducted on tax and national insurance as well.

Being accepted for statutory maternity pay by your contractor umbrella company is actually quite simple. The midwife who helped you give birth should provide you with and MATB1 form that you will need to fill out. If you are not able to fill out this form for a multitude of possible reasons then you will be entitled to maternity leave pay. Which we will explain in detail below.

As we mentioned previously there might be a multitude of reasons why you cannot claim statutory maternity pay. These could be things like you have not been working for the contractor umbrella company long enough to take it. There might be other reasons but really, they have nothing to do with a contractor umbrella company so we won’t mention them here.

You will receive maternity leave pay if you were employed for the last 26 weeks of employment out of the 66 weeks prior to your due date and have earned more than £30 a week. Luckily for you, maternity leave pay can be claimed once you have been pregnant for at least 26 weeks, then payments start about 11 weeks before your due date.

Similar to statutory maternity pay it is broken down into certain pay-outs, for example, £145 a week or 90% of your average weekly pay depending on which is less for 39 weeks. Which is similar however, a much shorter period. Depending on your eligibility you might also be paid in segments of £27 a week for 39 weeks or £27 a week for 14 weeks. This all depends on how many days you have worked of course.

It is important that before you take time of for maternity reasons you let the contractor umbrella company know via written communication at least 28 days before you intend to go off and your payments to begin. You will then receive confirmation from your contractor umbrella company that you are entitled to the break and how much you are entitled too via your maternity leave.

One thing you can try to do but, it is difficult to know when you will be better to return to work, is to give eight weeks’ notice of your intention to return to work. As we mentioned, it can be difficult to know when you are going to return to work. That is why it is best to keep in touch and have a day when you return to work to see how things are going!

If you would like to know more about your maternity rights then you can always get in touch with us here at Comparison Contractor. It takes a few seconds to fill out your contact details on our contact us form, then one of our one of a kind team members will be in touch as soon as they possibly can.