United Kingdom minimum wage
Statutory hourly minimum wage floor. The National Living Wage applies to workers aged 21 and over; lower National Minimum Wage rates apply to younger workers and to eligible apprentices. Revised every 1 April.
| Current value | 12.71 GBP/hour |
|---|---|
| In force from | 2026-04-01 |
| Official source | The National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2026 (S.I. 2026/357), amending the National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015 (S.I. 2015/621), made and in force 1 April 2026 |
| Last verified | 2026-07-20 |
| Verification | primary — No verification limitation recorded — read from the official source cited. |
| Provenance | source fingerprint |
What this value means
Served value is the National Living Wage headline rate for workers aged 21 and over: GBP 12.71/hour from 1 April 2026 (up from GBP 12.21, a 4.1% increase). The UK floor is AGE-BANDED, not regional — full schedule in force from 1 April 2026: aged 21 and over (NLW) GBP 12.71; aged 18-20 GBP 10.85; aged 16-17 (above compulsory school leaving age, under 18) GBP 8.00; apprentice rate GBP 8.00. The apprentice rate applies to apprentices aged under 19, and to apprentices aged 19+ who are in the first year of their apprenticeship; an apprentice aged 19+ who has completed the first year moves to the age-appropriate rate. The daily accommodation offset — the maximum an employer may count towards NMW pay for employer-provided accommodation — rose to GBP 11.10 per day (from GBP 10.66) by regulation 2(4) of S.I. 2026/357. There is NO lower regional or sectoral rate: the same statutory floor applies across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Note the separate, voluntary 'Real Living Wage' published by the Living Wage Foundation is NOT statutory and is deliberately excluded. Enforcement is by HMRC under the National Minimum Wage Act 1998; rates are set by government following recommendations from the Low Pay Commission (2026 recommendations accepted in full). The NLW age threshold was lowered from 23 to 21 on 1 April 2024, which is why the pre-2024 history values below cover a narrower age group. CITATION QUIRK: legislation.gov.uk hosts these uprating instruments twice — a draft page under /ukdsi/ and the made instrument under /uksi/. The /uksi/ made version is cited here.
Earlier values
| From | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-04-01 | 9.5 | — |
| 2023-04-01 | 10.42 | — |
| 2024-04-01 | 11.44 | — |
| 2025-04-01 | 12.21 | — |
Get it programmatically
curl https://euroref.dev/v1/gb/minimum-wage
# $0.001 per call — x402 on Base (USDC). No key, no signup.
# History: curl https://euroref.dev/v1/gb/minimum-wage/history?from=2020-01-01
# Provenance: curl https://euroref.dev/provenance/gb/minimum-wageOther United Kingdom series: policy interest rate · VAT rate · public holidays · inflation rate (CPI) · corporate tax rate · income tax rates · late-payment interest rate