Maternity Leave and Pension Contributions

Maternity leave raises a lot of practical questions, and pension contributions are rarely top of the list until, often, someone realises months in that they're not entirely sure what's happening to their pension while they're away. There's actually a valuable, and often overlooked, legal protection at play here: in many circumstances, your employer must keep contributing to your pension during paid maternity leave based on your normal salary, not your reduced maternity pay, which is a genuinely better deal than it might first appear. This page walks through exactly how contributions work at each stage of maternity leave, with a worked example, so you know what to expect and what's worth checking with your own employer.

The rule that catches most people out (in a good way)

Under UK employment law, an employer must continue to provide pension contributions during any period of paid maternity leave, and crucially, those employer contributions must be calculated as if you were still receiving your normal, pre-leave salary, not your actual, usually much lower, maternity pay. This means that during Statutory Maternity Pay, when your actual take-home pay may have dropped to the statutory rate or a percentage of your salary, your employer's pension contribution keeps being calculated on your full, normal earnings, exactly as if you were still working and earning as usual.

In practical terms, this means your employer is effectively contributing a larger percentage of what you're actually being paid during this period than they would in a normal working month, simply because the contribution is anchored to your full salary rather than your maternity pay. It's one of the more valuable, if under-appreciated, protections built into UK maternity leave rules, and it's worth knowing about specifically because it isn't always obvious from a payslip that shows a reduced maternity pay figure alongside what might look like an unusually generous pension contribution.

What happens to your own contribution

Your own pension contribution, as opposed to your employer's, generally works differently. Most employee pension contributions are calculated as a percentage of whatever you're actually being paid at the time, which during maternity leave means a percentage of your maternity pay, not your normal salary. This means your own contribution, in pounds, will usually reduce during maternity leave, even as your employer's contribution stays anchored to your full salary. This isn't a design flaw exactly; it simply reflects that your own contribution is deducted from your actual pay, and there's less actual pay to deduct it from during this period. Some employees choose to top up their own contribution voluntarily during maternity leave if they can afford to, precisely because they're aware their default contribution has temporarily reduced, though this is entirely optional and many people understandably don't have the spare income to do so during a period when household costs are often rising rather than falling.

What counts as "paid maternity leave" for this purpose

The enhanced employer contribution protection generally applies throughout your period of paid maternity leave, which for most employees means the 39 weeks during which Statutory Maternity Pay is payable, assuming you meet the qualifying conditions. Statutory Maternity Pay itself is usually paid at 90% of your average weekly earnings for the first six weeks, and then at the lower of a fixed statutory rate or 90% of average earnings for the remaining 33 weeks. Regardless of exactly how your maternity pay is calculated during this period, the key point is that your employer's pension contribution should still be calculated on your normal, full salary throughout, not on the reduced maternity pay figure you're actually receiving.

What happens once statutory pay ends

Statutory Maternity Leave can run for up to 52 weeks in total, but Statutory Maternity Pay only covers the first 39 of those weeks, meaning many women take some additional weeks of unpaid maternity leave at the end of their full year away from work. Once you move from paid to unpaid leave, the enhanced pension contribution protection generally no longer applies in the same way, since it is specifically tied to periods of paid leave. During any period of unpaid additional maternity leave, employer contributions may pause, and it's worth checking your specific employer's policy and your pension scheme rules to understand exactly what happens during this final stretch, since practice does vary between employers and schemes, and some employers choose to be more generous than the legal minimum requires.

A worked example

Consider Sarah, who earns £32,000 a year and normally has a combined 8% pension contribution split as 3% employer and 5% employee (including tax relief), based on qualifying earnings. During her Statutory Maternity Pay period, her actual pay drops significantly, but her employer must still calculate their 3% contribution on her full £32,000 salary basis, meaning the employer contribution carries on broadly as normal in pounds terms, even though Sarah's actual pay for that period is much lower. Her own 5% contribution, on the other hand, is calculated on her actual maternity pay, which is significantly less than her normal salary, so her own contribution in pounds reduces accordingly during this period, even though the percentage rate itself hasn't changed. The net effect is that Sarah's total pension contribution during maternity leave, expressed as a percentage of what she's actually being paid at the time, is considerably higher than 8%, purely because the employer's share is anchored to a much larger base figure than her actual take-home pay.

Enhanced maternity or occupational maternity pay schemes

Some employers offer occupational or enhanced maternity pay that goes beyond the statutory minimum, for example continuing full salary for a number of weeks before dropping to statutory pay, or offering a more generous package throughout. Where an enhanced scheme applies, it's worth checking specifically how your employer's own maternity pension policy interacts with it, since some employers extend the "full salary basis" pension contribution protection for the whole period their enhanced scheme covers, which can be considerably longer, and more generous, than the statutory minimum requires. This varies significantly between employers, so your own staff handbook, HR team, or scheme booklet is the best source for your specific entitlement.

Defined contribution vs defined benefit schemes

The full-salary basis rule described above applies most straightforwardly to defined contribution schemes, where contributions are a set percentage of pay paid into an individual pot. If you're in a defined benefit (final salary or career average) scheme instead, the mechanics work a little differently, since your eventual pension is based on a formula involving your salary and years of service rather than a pot built from contributions, but the same underlying legal protection still applies: your maternity leave should not, of itself, reduce the amount of pensionable service or pensionable salary counted towards your defined benefit pension, provided you return to work as expected. If you're in a defined benefit scheme and are unsure exactly how your particular scheme treats maternity leave, your scheme administrator or HR team will be able to explain the specific rules that apply to you, since defined benefit scheme rules can vary more than the standardised defined contribution approach.

If you don't return to work after maternity leave

The full-salary pension contribution protection is generally tied to your employment continuing, so if you resign during or at the end of your maternity leave and do not return to work at all, your employer's obligation to continue contributions on the enhanced basis will end at that point, in the same way it would for any employee who leaves a job. If you're considering not returning to work after maternity leave, it's worth checking your contract for any clauses about repaying enhanced (as opposed to statutory) maternity pay if you resign shortly after returning, since this is a separate issue from pension contributions but one that sometimes catches new parents by surprise if not checked in advance.

Maternity Allowance and pensions for the self-employed or recently employed

If you don't qualify for Statutory Maternity Pay, for example because you're self-employed or haven't been with your employer long enough, you may still be entitled to Maternity Allowance instead, paid directly by the government rather than through payroll. Because Maternity Allowance isn't paid through an employer's payroll system, the employer pension contribution protection described on this page, which is specifically tied to Statutory Maternity Pay and employer payroll, does not apply in the same way. If you're self-employed and receiving Maternity Allowance, it's worth thinking about maintaining your own personal pension contributions during this period in the same way you would for any other career break, since there is no employer contribution mechanism to fall back on; our page on pension for women with career breaks covers this in more detail.

Common questions about maternity leave and pensions

Does this rule apply to all employers, or only some? The requirement to maintain employer pension contributions on a normal-salary basis during paid Statutory Maternity Leave is a general legal requirement for qualifying schemes and employees, not something employers can opt out of, though the fine detail of how it interacts with occupational schemes can vary, so it's always worth confirming directly with your own employer.

What if I want to increase my own contribution during maternity leave? This is usually possible in principle, since most schemes allow you to vary your contribution rate, but because your own contribution is calculated on your actual maternity pay, any increase will still be a percentage of a reduced income figure, so it's worth checking with payroll whether, and how, this can be arranged if you want to pursue it.

Does adoption leave work the same way as maternity leave for pensions? Broadly, yes, statutory adoption pay and leave carry similar underlying principles around continued employer pension contributions, though it's worth confirming the specific rules with your employer, since adoption leave has its own statutory framework rather than being identical in every detail to maternity leave.

Practical steps to take before and during maternity leave

Before you go on leave, it's worth asking your HR or payroll team directly, in writing if possible, exactly how your pension contributions will be calculated throughout your leave, including during any unpaid period at the end, so there are no surprises later. It's also worth checking your first payslip after you return from a period of paid maternity leave to confirm contributions have resumed on the correct, normal salary basis, since payroll errors around parental leave transitions do happen and are usually easiest to spot, and fix, quickly rather than months later.

If you're planning a family and want to understand the broader picture beyond just the maternity leave period itself, our page on pension for women with career breaks covers the wider context of career breaks, including any additional unpaid leave you might take beyond statutory maternity leave, and the options available to keep your pension growing during that time.

It's also worth flagging that this protection sits alongside your other employment rights during maternity leave, including your right to return to the same or a similar role, and your continued accrual of holiday entitlement throughout your leave. Pension contributions are simply one part of a wider package of statutory protections designed to make sure taking maternity leave doesn't quietly erode your overall employment position, even though it can sometimes feel, in the moment, like everything about work has been paused. Keeping a mental note of each of these protections, pension contributions included, can help you check, calmly and with specific questions in hand, that everything has been applied correctly both during your leave and once you return.

Why this rule matters more than it might seem

It's easy to overlook pension contributions during maternity leave when there's so much else to think about, but this is genuinely one of the more valuable, quietly protective rules in UK employment law, precisely because it works in your favour without requiring you to do anything. Understanding that your employer's contribution is protected on a full-salary basis, even while your own take-home pay is reduced, can also be reassuring context if you're worried that a period of maternity leave will meaningfully set back your pension savings; the employer side of the equation, at least, continues largely as normal throughout your paid leave.