National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage: how the pay floors rise

The National Living Wage is the legal minimum hourly pay for workers aged 21 and over in the UK, and from 1 April 2026 it stands at £12.71 an hour, a rise of 50p or 4.1% on the previous year¹. Below that age, the National Minimum Wage applies in bands: £10.85 an hour for 18 to 20-year-olds and £8.00 an hour for 16 to 17-year-olds and most apprentices¹. Every rate changes on 1 April each year, following a recommendation to the government from the Low Pay Commission, an independent body of employers, trade unions and experts².

The rates are the floor, not the going rate: they are the least an employer may legally pay, worked out on gross pay before tax and National Insurance are taken off². Most workers in the UK over compulsory school leaving age are entitled to them, and they are enforced by HM Revenue and Customs². This page sets out the current rates by age, how the annual increase is decided, what it adds up to over a year, and what to do if your pay falls short.

Minimum wage rates by age from April 2026

The table below shows the statutory minimum hourly rates that apply from 1 April 2026, alongside the rates they replaced. The National Living Wage is simply the name given to the top band, for workers aged 21 and over; the National Minimum Wage covers the younger bands and apprentices¹.

The same figures are confirmed in the guidance for Northern Ireland, which applies the same rates and the same 1 April change date as the rest of the UK². The House of Lords Library's summary of the November 2025 Budget announcements records the same increases: the National Living Wage up 4.1% to £12.71 for eligible workers aged 21 and over, the 18 to 20 rate up 8.5% to £10.85, and the 16 to 17 and apprentice rate up 6% to £8.00³.

The National Living Wage: £12.71 an hour for workers aged 21 and over

The headline rise to £12.71 is a 4.1% increase, worth 50p an hour more than the £12.21 rate that applied from April 2025¹. The government framed it in the Budget as an increase of £900 to the gross annual earnings of a full-time worker on the National Living Wage³.

The age threshold for the top rate has come down over time. When the National Living Wage was introduced in April 2016 it applied only to workers over 25. The threshold came down from 25 to 23 in April 2021, and from 23 to 21 in April 2024, which brought 21 and 22-year-olds onto the full rate for the first time¹. Before April 2024, 21 and 22-year-olds were on the lower National Minimum Wage band, at £8.36 an hour in the 2021 to 2022 tax year⁶.

The £12.71 figure did not appear out of nowhere. When the Low Pay Commission published its recommendations, it noted that its earlier projected range for the on-course rate had been between £12.55 and £12.86, with a central estimate of £12.71, and that is the figure the government adopted⁴.

Rates for 18 to 20-year-olds, under-18s and apprentices

The younger bands rose faster than the top rate in 2026, continuing a deliberate pattern of narrowing the gaps between age groups. The 18 to 20 rate rose by 8.5%, from £10.00 to £10.85 an hour, an increase of 85p¹. The 16 to 17 rate and the apprentice rate both rose by 6%, from £7.55 to £8.00 an hour³.

The year before, the same bands had risen much more sharply. From 1 April 2025, the 18 to 20 rate went up by £1.40 to £10.00, a 16.3% rise, and the 16 to 17 rate went up by £1.15 to £7.55⁷. Those were among the largest increases any band has received, and they followed the extension of the full National Living Wage down to 21-year-olds in April 2024⁷.

Who counts as an apprentice for the apprentice rate matters. The apprentice rate of £8.00 applies to apprentices aged under 19, and to apprentices aged 19 or over who are in the first year of their apprenticeship². An apprentice aged 21 who has completed their first year is entitled to the full National Living Wage of £12.71, not the apprentice rate². Different minimum wage rates continue to apply to 18 to 20-year-olds, 16 to 17-year-olds and apprentices in the first year of their apprenticeship⁸.

In Wales, the Senedd's regulations on financial support for apprentices replace a fixed weekly earnings threshold of £195 with a reference point tied to the National Minimum Wage applicable to apprentices, and introduce an annual uprating of that threshold in line with the apprentice rate⁹. The practical effect is that support for apprentices moves automatically when the minimum wage moves, rather than waiting for a separate review.

What the rise means for your annual and monthly pay

What an hourly rate adds up to depends on contracted hours. The government's own worked example for the April 2025 rise, for a National Living Wage worker doing 37.5 hours a week, put the increase at £1,505.54 a year in gross pay, or £125.46 a month⁸. The April 2026 rise was presented as worth £900 a year to a full-time worker's gross annual earnings³.

For a sense of the annual total, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation calculated that working full-time on the National Living Wage of £12.21 an hour in 2025 provided a gross income of £23,875 a year¹⁰. These are gross figures: minimum wage pay is calculated before tax and National Insurance are deducted, so what arrives in the bank account is lower².

The rises have not always kept pace with prices. The 6.6% increase to £9.50 in April 2022 failed to keep up with inflation that year, leaving minimum wage workers around £200 a year worse off in real terms, according to Maternity Action's cost of living survey analysis¹¹. The Office for National Statistics notes that between the financial year ending 2022 and the financial year ending 2023 the National Living Wage increased nominally by 6.6%, while the voluntary Real Living Wage increased by 10.1% over the same period, a sign of how far prices were moving¹².

How the rates are set: the two-thirds of median earnings target

Since 2020 the government has had a standing target for the National Living Wage to reach two-thirds of median earnings¹³. Median earnings are the pay of the worker in the middle of the distribution: half earn more, half earn less. The government asks the Low Pay Commission to ensure that the National Living Wage rate does not drop below two-thirds of UK median earnings for workers in the National Living Wage population⁵.

The Low Pay Commission is an independent body made up of employers, trade unions and experts, whose role is to advise the government on the minimum wage⁴. Each year it gathers evidence, consults, and produces an estimate of the rate needed to stay on course for the target. For the 2026 rate, its central estimate published alongside the May consultation was £12.65, within a range of £12.50 to £12.80; by August 2025 it had updated that to a central estimate of £12.71, within a range of £12.55 to £12.86⁵. The government then adopted £12.71 in the November 2025 Budget³.

The target has shifted over the years. In 2017 the government's stated aim was for the National Living Wage to amount to 60% of median earnings by 2020¹⁴. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has described the current approach as setting a course toward the government's target of a minimum wage equal to two-thirds of median pay¹⁵. Because the target is a share of median earnings rather than a fixed cash figure, the rate rises with pay growth across the economy, not with a formula tied to prices.

How the pay floor has risen since it began

The National Living Wage was announced in the 2015 Summer Budget and set at £7.20 an hour for workers over 25, taking effect in April 2016 under the National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2016¹⁴. It was a substantial jump from the National Minimum Wage adult rate that preceded it, and the Resolution Foundation estimated at the time that 4.5 million employees would see their hourly wage rise as a result of its introduction¹⁶.

The path since then has been one of repeated above-inflation rises, with two interruptions. The rate reached £7.83 in April 2018¹⁴ and £8.72 in April 2020, a 6.2% rise¹⁷. The 2.2% increase in April 2021, during the pandemic, was small by the standard of the time, though the government noted it took the rate to its highest ever real value¹³. The 6.6% rise to £9.50 in April 2022 helped restore some lost value but was soon eroded by inflation¹³. Then came the largest cash increase in the rate's history: 9.7% to £10.42 in April 2023¹³, followed by the move to £11.44 in April 2024, when the age threshold also came down to 21¹⁹, and £12.21 in April 2025, a 6.7% rise²⁰.

The Resolution Foundation's analysis of the early years projected that by 2020 a total of 6 million employees in Britain would have received some increase: 3.2 million brought up to at least the National Living Wage and another 2.8 million moved onto higher wages through spillovers, as pay scales just above the floor were pushed up¹⁶. It projected average gross gains of £1,210 a year for employees directly benefiting, and £240 a year for those who gained only through spillovers¹⁶. The effects were unevenly spread: more than one in four workers were expected to be affected in Wales, the West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber and the East Midlands, while London, where wages are higher, saw a much gentler rise in the floor's reach¹⁶.

The real Living Wage is a separate, voluntary rate

The name causes real confusion, and it is worth being clear about. The UK Living Wage and the London Living Wage are voluntary pay benchmarks that employers can sign up to if they wish, calculated by the Living Wage Foundation; they are not legally binding requirements⁴. They apply to workers aged 18 and over, whereas the National Living Wage applies to workers aged 21 and over⁴.

The Living Wage Foundation's rates are announced at the start of November each year, and accredited employers are expected to start paying the new rate as soon as possible and within six months of the announcement¹⁴. The Foundation's rate is calculated each year by the Resolution Foundation, based on what people think is needed for an acceptable standard of living, an approach related to the Minimum Income Standard¹⁴.

Because it is set against living costs rather than median earnings, the voluntary rate usually sits above the statutory one. Full Fact's comparison found the gap between the Foundation's Living Wage and the statutory rates ran from £2.37 to £4.30 an hour in London, and between 92p and £2.85 an hour across the rest of the UK, depending on age¹⁴. The dedicated comparison page, National Living Wage or real Living Wage, sets the two side by side.

Accommodation offset and pay reference periods

Where an employer provides accommodation, a set amount per day can be counted towards the minimum wage, and anything charged above that offset cannot be. From April 2026 the accommodation offset is £11.10 per day, an increase of 44p on the £10.66 that applied from April 2025¹. The £10.66 figure itself had risen by 67p on the year, from £9.99⁷. Further back, the offset stood at £9.10 per day from April 2023¹³.

The offset matters most in sectors where accommodation is part of the package, such as hospitality, agriculture and care. An employer who charges more than £11.10 a day for accommodation from April 2026 cannot count the excess towards minimum wage pay, which effectively raises the cash wages they must pay¹.

The other mechanical point is the pay reference period. A pay reference period cannot be longer than 31 days². This is the window over which minimum wage compliance is tested, so an employer cannot average out a shortchange across a long stretch of pay. Where pay varies, the rules for working out averages come into play: for redundancy and similar claims, the government asks for your average rate of pay over the last 12 weeks worked, and for holiday pay claims with varied pay, over the last 52 weeks²¹.

Where the minimum wage does not reach

The statutory floor does not cover everyone. The self-employed are not entitled to the National Minimum Wage in the way employees are, and this has knock-on effects in the benefits system. If you are self-employed and your earned income is lower than your minimum income floor, the minimum income floor is used instead of actual earnings when your Universal Credit award is calculated, less an amount to reflect income tax and National Insurance²². If the minimum income floor applies to you and you earn below that level in any month, you are treated as earning the minimum income floor anyway²³.

Workers paid through umbrella companies are better protected: government guidance states that such workers have the right to be paid at least the National Minimum Wage or National Living Wage, on time, in full, at the intervals agreed in the key information document²⁴.

The minimum wage also appears in the rules for other support, as a yardstick rather than a payment. In England, working families claiming funded early education and childcare must earn at least 16 hours per week at the National Minimum Wage (if aged 20 or under) or the National Living Wage (if aged 21 or over)²⁵. Which? notes that employers are legally required to pay at least the minimum wage, £12.21 an hour for an adult aged 21 or over at the time of its article, after factoring in all deductions²⁶. In housing, guidance on finding landlords who accept benefits notes that the amount of help with rent may be lower if you work²⁷. The ONS family spending statistics record that the national minimum wage increased by 9.8% from £10.42 in the financial year ending 2024 to £11.44 in the financial year ending 2025, one of the larger annual moves in the series²⁸.

If you are paid less than the minimum wage

Most workers in the UK over compulsory school leaving age are legally entitled to be paid at least the National Minimum Wage, and all employers must pay it². The test is on gross pay, before tax and National Insurance are taken off, so deductions cannot be used to push effective pay below the floor². Both the National Minimum Wage and the National Living Wage are enforced by HM Revenue and Customs¹⁴.

If you believe you are being underpaid, the steps are:

1. Check your hourly rate against the table above for your age band, and remember the rate in force on the dates you were paid, not the current one.
2. Ask your employer in writing for your payment records. They must produce the records within 14 days of your request, or at a date you agree with them².
3. Keep your own evidence: your payslips, a note of hours worked, and your bank statements. Your payslip must show your pay and deductions²⁹.
4. If your pay varied, be ready to show your average rate of pay over the last 12 weeks you worked, or the last 52 weeks for a holiday pay claim²¹.
5. If the employer will not put it right, a complaint can be made to HMRC, which enforces the minimum wage¹⁴.

Free, impartial help is available. ACAS can advise on workplace pay disputes, and HMRC takes complaints about underpayment directly. For wider money problems, debt help and your rights explains where free advice charities fit in, and consumer protection sets out your rights more generally. The cost of living crisis page explains the price backdrop against which these pay rises have landed.