Country file

What it costs an employer to hire in United Kingdom

An employer in the UK pays £64,846 on a gross salary of £55,000. That is 17.9% more than the salary.

At £110,000 the employer adds 16.7%, because the contribution ceilings start to bite.

Every rate below comes from a statutory source with the date it was read. The figures are for 2026.

A mid salary of £55,000

Employer-side statutory contributions on a gross salary of £55,000 a year. Each line is capped at the range shown, so the amount is the rate applied to the part of the salary that falls inside that range.
Contribution	Rate	Annual base charged	Amount	Source
Employer secondary Class 1 National Insurance	15.00%	no ceiling	£8,250	source checked 2026-08-21
Workplace pension, minimum employer auto-enrolment contribution	3.00%	£6,240 to £50,270	£1,321	source checked 2026-08-21
Apprenticeship Levy (only employers with a pay bill over 3m)	0.50%	no ceiling	£275	source checked 2026-08-21
Statutory employer contributions			£9,846

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Everything the law obliges the employer to pay. It excludes anything discretionary, anything an EOR charges, and any insurance premium that is set per employer rather than by statute.
Gross salary	£55,000
Statutory employer contributions	£9,846
Total employer cost	£64,846
Added on top of the salary	17.9%

A senior salary of £110,000

Employer-side statutory contributions on a gross salary of £110,000 a year. Each line is capped at the range shown, so the amount is the rate applied to the part of the salary that falls inside that range.
Contribution	Rate	Annual base charged	Amount	Source
Employer secondary Class 1 National Insurance	15.00%	no ceiling	£16,500	source checked 2026-08-21
Workplace pension, minimum employer auto-enrolment contribution	3.00%	£6,240 to £50,270	£1,321	source checked 2026-08-21
Apprenticeship Levy (only employers with a pay bill over 3m)	0.50%	no ceiling	£550	source checked 2026-08-21
Statutory employer contributions			£18,371

Scroll sideways on a phone.

Everything the law obliges the employer to pay. It excludes anything discretionary, anything an EOR charges, and any insurance premium that is set per employer rather than by statute.
Gross salary	£110,000
Statutory employer contributions	£18,371
Total employer cost	£128,371
Added on top of the salary	16.7%

The formula

total employer cost = gross salary + sum over each statutory contribution of rate x max(0, min(salary, ceiling) - band floor) (zero if the contribution applies only below a wage the salary exceeds) + gross salary x (mandatory extra months / 12) + gross salary x mandatory severance accrual rate

Each ceiling above applies only to its own line, which is why the employer percentage for United Kingdom is not the same at both salaries. Employer contribution ceilings, country by country lists where every ceiling on this site sits.

Time off, extra pay and leaving

Statutory paid leave	28 days
Public holidays	8
Mandatory extra pay	0 months
Minimum employer notice	1 weeks

5.6 weeks, which is 28 days on a five-day week. The employer may count the 8 bank holidays inside that 28, so bank holidays are not necessarily extra paid days (gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights).

No statutory 13th month.

No general statutory severance. Statutory redundancy pay applies on redundancy only: half a week, one week or one and a half weeks' pay per year of service by age band, on a weekly pay capped at 751 pounds from 6 April 2026, 20 years maximum, 22,530 pounds maximum.

What the percentage hides

Employer National Insurance has no upper earnings limit. The 15% continues on everything above the 5,000 pound secondary threshold, so the employer burden does not taper as pay rises.

Employment Allowance can reduce an eligible small employer's annual NI bill by up to 10,500 pounds. It is not modeled in the percentages here.

Auto-enrolment qualifying earnings run from 6,240 to 50,270 pounds and are unchanged for 2026/27 (thepensionsregulator.gov.uk).

Not confirmed on a statutory source, and therefore not in any figure above: the full statutory notice escalation schedule beyond one week per year, capped at 12 weeks.

Using an employer of record in the United Kingdom

Everything above is what the state takes. An employer of record adds its own fee on top, and that fee is a flat monthly amount rather than a percentage, so it weighs far more on a junior salary than a senior one. The published prices are here, and the calculator will add one to the figures on this page.

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Written by Kaz, independent publisher. No commercial relationship with the providers named unless it is listed on the disclosure page.

Page last updated 2026-08-30. Sources: statutory bodies only, listed per figure. Rates last verified 2026-08-21. This is not legal, tax or payroll advice and we do not file anyone's payroll.

Every formula on this site is written out in full on Method. Ordering is by computed cost, never by what a provider pays us.

Corrections: contact form.