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information for domestic workers

All domestic employers in the UK are required by law to pay at least the National Minimum Wage (NMW). It is a criminal offence for an employer to pay below the NMW, carrying a fine of up to £5,000 on conviction, unless you're living as part of the family household (i.e. without separately metered accommodation). For current NMW rates, please refer to our rates and thresholds page.

Your Rights

  • You can check if you are above the NMW from the payslips your employer should be providing you with. Simply divide your gross weekly wage by the number of hours you have worked to calculate your hourly wage
  • If you think that your employer is not paying the NMW you are also entitled to inspect the tax records they keep for your employment. They must give you access to these within 14 days of receiving a written request from you, but this should only be your final course of action after more friendly and informal communication between you has broken down
The working time directive
Domestic employees are exempt from the measures concerning working hours but are entitled to a 20 minute rest break for every six hours worked.
Holiday entitlement PDF Print E-mail
All employees in the UK are entitled by law to 5.6 weeks holiday per year. For a full-time employee that is 28 paid days off per year, of which 4 weeks (20 days) is standard leave and 1.6 weeks (8 days) is all 8 of the bank holidays.

If you work part-time and wish to calculate your pro rata holiday entitlement, you simply multiply the number of days you work per week by 5.6. So, for example if you work 3 days per week, you would multiply 3 by 5.6 which means you are entitled to a total of 16.8 days per year.

In addition to holiday entitlement, the Working Time Regulations, the UK interpretation of the European Working Time Directive, also grants all employees the following statutory rights:

  • Rest breaks
  • Domestic employees are however exempt from the measures concerning working hours