Maternity Leave and Sales Commission in the UK: What Employers Actually Owe

A top-performing rep tells you she's pregnant. Your first thought should not be "what does the spreadsheet do here?" — but for most UK sales organisations, that is exactly the moment the wheels come off. Commission plans are written for the steady state. Maternity leave is the messy edge case that exposes every assumption you didn't write down. This guide walks through what UK employers legally owe on commission before, during and after maternity leave, with the 2026/27 numbers, the Alabaster recalculation rule, and the practical mechanics for paying it through payroll.

TL;DR

In the UK, an employee on maternity leave is entitled to: (1) commission they earned before their leave started, even if it's paid later; (2) commission for the two weeks of compulsory maternity leave after the birth; (3) commission for any Keeping in Touch (KIT) days worked; and (4) a fair share of any company-wide or pro-rated individual bonus that covers the leave period. Commission paid in the eight weeks before the qualifying week counts as earnings for Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP), so it usually raises — not lowers — the AWE figure. Statutory Maternity Pay for 2026/27 is 90% of average weekly earnings for the first six weeks, then £194.32 or 90% of AWE (whichever is lower) for up to 33 weeks (GOV.UK rates and thresholds 2026 to 2027).

Does commission count towards Statutory Maternity Pay?

Yes. SMP is calculated on average weekly earnings (AWE) over the eight-week relevant period ending with the last payday before the qualifying week — the 15th week before the expected week of childbirth (GOV.UK SMP guidance). Anything HMRC treats as earnings for Class 1 NIC purposes counts, and that includes commission, bonuses, accelerators and SPIFFs paid in that window.

This matters more than most finance teams realise. Commission is lumpy. If the eight-week reference period happens to include a £12,000 quarterly accelerator payment, the resulting AWE — and therefore the first six weeks of SMP at 90% — will be significantly higher than the rep's base salary alone would suggest. If it happens to include a clawback, the AWE drops. The dates of the qualifying week are not negotiable, but the way you sequence commission payments around them sometimes is.

What commission do you have to pay during maternity leave?

Acas — the statutory advisory body — is unambiguous on this. According to Acas guidance on commission and time off work, employers should pay employees on maternity leave any commission they earned before their leave, even if the payment date falls after leave has started. They are also entitled to commission for:

• the compulsory maternity leave period — the first two weeks after the birth, or four weeks for factory workers
• any Keeping in Touch (KIT) day the employee chooses to work (up to 10 are allowed under GOV.UK guidance on employee rights during parental leave)

Failing to pay any of the above can be both maternity discrimination under the Equality Act 2010 and an unlawful deduction from wages under the Employment Rights Act 1996. That is two distinct legal exposures from the same missed line in a spreadsheet.

Commission for the rest of the leave period

This is where it gets nuanced. There is no automatic right to be paid pipeline-generated commission for the 50 weeks of maternity leave when the rep isn't selling. But two things complicate that.

First, deals that closed before leave still pay out. If a rep signed a 36-month contract in March and the commission plan pays on a milestone in September while she's on leave, that commission was earned in March. It is owed.

Second, bonuses and commissions structured around company or team performance are treated like any other bonus. According to Acas guidance on bonuses and time off work, a bonus based on the organisation's performance must be paid to employees on maternity leave on the same basis as to colleagues — not paying it can amount to maternity discrimination. A bonus based on individual performance can be pro-rated to reflect time actually worked, plus the compulsory leave window and any KIT days.

How do you pro-rate commission for the bonus year?

If you run an annual bonus or commission accelerator tied to personal quota attainment, the lawful approach is to pro-rate it across the time the rep was at work, plus protected periods. Acas walks through the worked example: a 52-week bonus year, with the rep at work for 26 weeks and on compulsory maternity leave for 2 weeks, gives a 28/52 share of the bonus.

Period in the bonus year	Counts towards pro-rated commission?
Time actually at work before leave	Yes
Compulsory maternity leave (first 2 weeks post-birth)	Yes
Keeping in Touch (KIT) days worked	Yes (each day in addition)
Ordinary and additional maternity leave (the other ~50 weeks)	No — but cannot be excluded for individual performance bonuses
Time after returning to work	Yes

The rep still has to meet the conditions of the bonus. If the plan requires hitting 80% of personal quota and the rep didn't, pro-rating doesn't override that — but you should ask whether the quota itself was prorated to reflect time on leave. Holding someone to a full-year quota for half a year of work is, in practice, indirect discrimination.

The Alabaster ruling: pay rises and rate changes during leave

This is the rule most UK employers get wrong. Following the European Court of Justice decision in Alabaster, the Statutory Maternity Pay (General) Regulations 1986 were amended in 2005. Per HMRC's internal manual SPM172200, the SMP AWE calculation "must now take into account pay rises awarded, or which would have been awarded, to an employee had she not been on maternity leave" — if the rise falls between the start of the relevant period for SMP and the end of statutory maternity leave.

In plain English: if you give the team a pay rise or improve the commission plan rates while one of your reps is on maternity leave, you must retrospectively recalculate her SMP as if she had been on the new arrangement throughout. The same logic, by extension, applies to commission rates: a more generous accelerator tier rolled out during her leave should feed into the AWE recalculation for the eight-week reference period.

How does SMP recovery work for the employer?

UK employers can reclaim most of the SMP they pay out from HMRC. For 2026/27, the recovery rate is 92% for employers whose total Class 1 NIC bill for the previous tax year was above £45,000, and 109% (Small Employers' Relief) for those at or below £45,000. The extra 17% for small employers is meant to offset employer NIC paid on SMP itself.

The wrinkle: you can only recover SMP, not enhanced contractual maternity pay, and you cannot recover commission paid in addition to SMP. If your contractual policy is "SMP plus full commission earned before leave" — which it should be — the commission portion sits on your P&L.

A worked example: a £45k + £15k OTE rep going on leave

Consider a SaaS account executive on a £45,000 base + £15,000 OTE, 70/30 split, paid quarterly. Her expected week of childbirth is in October 2026, so the qualifying week is in early July, and the eight-week reference period covers May and June 2026.

• Base pay in the reference period: £45,000 / 52 × 8 = ~£6,923
• Commission paid in the reference period: she earned £4,200 of Q1 commission paid in late April that lands in May payroll
• Total AWE: (£6,923 + £4,200) / 8 = £1,390 per week
• SMP first 6 weeks: 90% × £1,390 = £1,251/week
• SMP weeks 7–39: capped at £194.32/week

If the Q2 commission run (paid in July) includes deals she closed in March, that money is owed in full and runs through PAYE in the normal way. If a Q4 team accelerator triggers in January 2027 because the whole team smashed a target she was part of during her working months, she gets her share of it. And if you roll out a new uplifted plan in September 2026 while she's on leave, the AWE recalculation under Alabaster might bump her first six weeks of SMP upwards.

For more on how OTE structures shape these calculations, see our guide to OTE salary in UK sales and the broader commission tax UK explainer.

Common failure modes

The disputes and tribunal claims we see almost always trace back to the same handful of mistakes:

• Treating the eight-week SMP reference period as base-only. Commission paid in that window is earnings. Excluding it produces a too-low AWE and underpaid SMP.
• Withholding commission earned pre-leave because the payment date falls during leave. That is unlawful deduction from wages full stop, per Acas.
• Forgetting the two-week compulsory maternity period for pro-rating. Every individual-performance bonus calculation should include it.
• Not paying for KIT days. A KIT day is paid work. It must be paid, including any commission element if the rep closes business that day.
• Ignoring Alabaster when plans change. Mid-year plan rollouts during leave trigger a recalculation duty.
• Excluding the rep from team-wide spiffs and company bonuses. Company-performance bonuses must be paid to employees on maternity leave. See our piece on sales spiff vs commission UK for the distinction that matters here.

Clean audit trail is everything. If a rep raises a grievance two years after returning to work, you need to be able to reconstruct exactly what was paid, on what basis, against which plan version. Our guide to handling commission disputes covers the documentation discipline.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does commission paid before maternity leave still need to be paid if the payment date falls during leave?

Yes. According to Acas guidance, employers should pay commission earned before maternity leave even if the actual payment date falls after leave has started. Withholding it is treated as unlawful deduction from wages and can be maternity discrimination.

Is commission included when calculating Statutory Maternity Pay?

Yes. SMP is based on average weekly earnings over the eight weeks ending with the last payday before the qualifying week, and commission paid in that period counts as earnings for the calculation. A large commission payout in the reference window can materially increase the first six weeks of SMP at 90% of AWE.

What is the Alabaster ruling and when does it apply?

The Alabaster ruling, embedded in UK law through amendments to the Statutory Maternity Pay (General) Regulations 1986, requires employers to recalculate SMP to take account of any pay rise awarded — or that would have been awarded — between the start of the SMP reference period and the end of statutory maternity leave. HMRC guidance at SPM172200 sets out the time limits for backdated claims.

Do reps on maternity leave get paid for KIT days?

Yes. Keeping in Touch (KIT) days are optional paid work. The pay should be agreed in advance and, per Acas, any commission earned on a KIT day is owed in addition to SMP. Employees can work up to 10 KIT days during maternity leave without it affecting their SMP entitlement.

Can a sales rep be made redundant during maternity leave?

Only under strict conditions. UK regulations from 6 April 2024 extended redundancy protection to cover pregnancy and the 18 months from birth — during this protected window, employees facing redundancy must be offered any suitable alternative role in priority to other affected staff. Acas guidance on redundancy protection for pregnancy and new parents covers the detail.

Getting this right

Maternity and commission is one of the cases where spreadsheet-based commission management quietly accumulates risk. The compulsory-leave pro-rating, the Alabaster recalculation, the eight-week SMP reference window, the KIT day commission — none of these are exotic. They are routine UK employment law. But they require commission records you can audit by date, by plan version, by deal cohort. If you cannot answer "what did this rep earn in the eight weeks before her qualifying week, broken down by source" in under a minute, you are running on hope. That is the gap commission management tooling closes — and the gap that, when left open, ends up in front of an employment tribunal.