Statutory redundancy pay is one of the few figures in employment law you can work out exactly, because every input is published. Three things decide it: your age across each year of service, how many of those years count, and a weekly pay figure the law caps. Everything else you have been offered sits on top of that number rather than inside it, which is why the first job is to separate the two.
The formula, exactly as the statute sets it
GOV.UK states the entitlement in three lines: half a week's pay for each full year you were under 22, one week's pay for each full year you were 22 or older but under 41, and one and a half week's pay for each full year you were 41 or older. Section 162 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 is the same rule in statutory form, worked backwards from the end of employment. Length of service is capped at 20 years, so the longest possible reckonable period is the last 20, not the first.
The two caps that decide the ceiling
A week's pay is not your actual week's pay once it passes the statutory limit. GOV.UK gives the figures directly: if you were made redundant on or after 6 April 2026 your weekly pay is capped at 751 pounds and the maximum statutory redundancy pay is 22,530 pounds. Those two numbers move together, because the maximum is the cap run through the longest possible calculation: 30 weeks of capped pay. If you were made redundant before 6 April 2026 both figures are lower, which is why the date your job ends matters as much as your service does.
Which week's pay the calculation uses
The weekly figure is not this month's payslip. GOV.UK defines it as the average you earned per week over the 12 weeks before the day you got your redundancy notice. That averaging window is where most disputes about a redundancy payout actually start, because a quiet quarter, unpaid leave or a change in hours inside those 12 weeks pulls the average down and the capped figure with it. Where pay was reduced because of furlough, GOV.UK says the calculation uses what you would have earned normally.
Where contractual or enhanced redundancy pay sits
Contractual redundancy pay is whatever your contract, a collective agreement or a policy promises above the statutory floor, and nothing in the Act caps it. A common shape is to drop the age bands and pay a flat number of weeks per year, or to lift or remove the weekly cap so real salary is used. There is no published benchmark for what a good enhanced redundancy package looks like, and no honest page can give you one: what makes an offer good is how far it exceeds the statutory figure you can now compute, and how the notice and tax elements are handled around it.
Who is entitled, and the deadline that is easy to miss
GOV.UK puts the qualifying period at two years or more with your current employer as an employee. It also names the exclusions: an employer offering to keep you on, or offering suitable alternative work you refuse without good reason, and dismissal for misconduct, which is not redundancy at all. The deadline is short and statutory: you have six months from the date your job ends to apply for statutory redundancy pay, and section 164 of the Act sets out the ways that period is stopped, including a written claim to the employer.
Questions people ask about redundancy pay calculator UK
How do I work out my redundancy payout myself?
Count your full years of service, capped at 20, and split them by the age you were in each year. Multiply the years under 22 by half a week, the years from 22 to 40 by one week and the years from 41 by one and a half weeks. Then multiply the total by your average weekly pay over the 12 weeks before notice, capped at 751 pounds for a redundancy on or after 6 April 2026.
Is there a maximum statutory redundancy payment?
Yes. GOV.UK puts it at 22,530 pounds for a redundancy on or after 6 April 2026. It is not an arbitrary ceiling: it is 30 weeks of capped pay, which is what 20 years of service at the one and a half week band produces.
Does contractual redundancy pay replace the statutory amount?
Normally it absorbs it rather than adds to it, so an enhanced scheme pays its own figure and the statutory element is part of that sum. The document that says which applies is your contract or the redundancy policy, and it is the first thing to read before comparing offers.
Is this page a statutory redundancy pay calculator that works out my entitlement?
No. It sets out the published rules and the published caps with the source for each, so you can do the arithmetic and check what you have been offered. It does not advise on your circumstances and does not act for anyone. Where you want that, it passes an enquiry to a firm that does.
Is a redundancy tax calculator UK the same thing as this page?
No. This page works the statutory sum from the age bands, the twenty-year service cap and the week's pay cap. What tax is then due on that sum, and on the notice and ex gratia money beside it, is a separate calculation with its own rule, and it is set out on the tax on redundancy pay page. For a good many people the two answers differ by nothing, because GOV.UK states that statutory redundancy pay under 30,000 pounds is not taxable.