Statutory redundancy pay depends on two things that change over time: your length of service and your age. Both can move during your notice period, and if either crosses a threshold, you are owed more.
This is one of the most commonly missed points in redundancy calculations, and it is worth thousands in the right circumstances.
One week per complete year from two years, capped at 12. Your contract may require more. An employee resigning owes one week however long they have worked.
The rule
Your statutory notice period counts towards your continuous employment. Redundancy pay is calculated to the “relevant date”, and where an employer gives less than the statutory notice, the relevant date is treated as the date statutory notice would have expired.
That protection exists in section 145 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 precisely to stop the length of notice affecting entitlement.
Two thresholds worth watching
Work anniversaries. Redundancy pay counts complete years of service. Nine years and eleven months counts as nine.
Birthdays. The formula pays 1.5 weeks per year for years worked aged 41 or over, 1 week for ages 22 to 40, and half a week below 22. Crossing a birthday matters — but not in the way most people assume, as the example below shows.
A worked example
David is told on 1 September 2026 that he is being made redundant. He started on 15 September 2016 and earns £700 a week. He turns 41 on 20 September 2026.
Calculated at the notice date: 9 complete years’ service, aged 40. Nine years at 1 week each = 9 weeks. At the £751 cap that is £6,300 based on his actual £700 weekly pay.
Calculated properly, with notice: He has 9 years’ service, so he is entitled to 9 weeks’ statutory notice, taking his employment to 3 November 2026. By then he has passed his tenth work anniversary on 15 September.
That gives 10 complete years: 10 weeks, or £7,000.
A £700 difference from the same dismissal, depending only on whether the notice period was accounted for.
Why the birthday did not help here
David turned 41 during his notice, and you might expect that to move a year into the 1.5-weeks-per-year band. It does not, and the reason is worth understanding because it is where most explanations of this go wrong.
The age bands are applied by reckoning backwards year by year from the date employment ends, using your age during each year of service. David ends employment aged 41, so the year before that he was 40, the year before that 39, and so on. Every one of his ten counted years was worked while he was aged 40 or under, so every one is credited at 1 week.
Turning 41 helps only once you go on to complete a full year of service at that age. Had David been dismissed a year later, that year would have counted at 1.5 weeks.
So a birthday crossing your notice period is worth nothing on its own. A work anniversary crossing it is worth a full week’s pay. Both are worth checking, but they are not equivalent.
Why our calculator asks for the end date
We ask for “date employment ends, including any statutory notice you are entitled to” rather than the date you were told. That phrasing exists because of this rule.
If you enter the notification date instead, you may understate your entitlement. Work out your notice period first, add it, then calculate redundancy on that date.
Work out your notice period first
Pay in lieu of notice
If you are paid in lieu rather than working your notice, your employment ends immediately — but your statutory redundancy pay should still be calculated as though statutory notice had been given.
This is where errors most often appear. An employer who ends employment on 1 September, pays 9 weeks in lieu, and then calculates redundancy as at 1 September has probably underpaid.
Checking your own figure
- Work out your complete years of service at the date you were told.
- Work out your statutory notice entitlement from that service.
- Add the notice to get the true relevant date.
- Check whether you cross a work anniversary in that window. This is the one that adds a week.
- Recalculate if you do. A birthday alone will not change the figure unless you also complete a further year of service at the higher age.
If the figures differ and your employer used the earlier date, raise it. Point to section 145; it is a specific provision and easy for them to verify.
The 20-year cap
Only the most recent 20 years count. If you already have more than 20 years’ service, crossing another anniversary changes nothing, because you were already at the maximum.
Your age can still matter over a longer period, because as older years enter the counted window at the 41-plus rate they replace lower-rated years. But this is a slow effect, not something a notice period will trigger.
Where this does not apply
Enhanced redundancy schemes. If your employer pays more than the statutory minimum under a contractual scheme, its own terms govern how service is counted. Check the scheme.
Under two years’ service. No statutory entitlement at all, and notice cannot take you from under two years to over for these purposes if you started less than two years minus your notice period ago.
Sources
- Employment Rights Act 1996, section 145 — legislation.gov.uk
- Calculate your statutory redundancy pay — GOV.UK
- Redundancy: your rights — GOV.UK
Checked against source on 30 August 2026. This is general guidance, not legal advice. If a large sum turns on this, get advice from Acas or an employment solicitor.
Written by Nathan Cole
I built the calculators on HoursHQ and check every statutory figure against GOV.UK, Acas and the legislation itself before it goes live. Where the law is genuinely unclear, I say so rather than guessing.