Split Maternity Leave UK

You need to take your maternity leave in one go, maternity leave and pay will end when you return to work. The exception to this is if you are doing shared parental leave with your partner. The full and half pay is occupational above the statutory pay so you could have a conversation with your employer if you wanted to remain on leave but receive some of the pay in later months . Hopefully this makes sense

That is super helpful - thank you!

Be easier to move the booked leave I would think.

Why do you have booked leave if you are on maternity leave? I would cancel the leave. Your company will still owe you the annual leave at the end of your mat leave

@Emma just to add - the partner doesn't need to take any of the shared parental leave. So you could take maternity leave until your booked leave, 'return to work' for the time you've already booked, then start shared parental leave after. However- unless your employer has a separate shared parental leave policy/offers enhanced SPL pay, you forfeit any enhanced pay by curtailing maternity leave and starting SPL and will go on to basic statutory pay. I.e I'm a teacher so am using SPL because we don't accrue holiday pay or have enhanced SPP (just minimal enhanced Mat Pay) and my leave looks like: Weeks 1-19 : Mat Leave (18w enhanced - 4w 100% pay, 2w 90%, 12w 50%+SMP) Curtailing Mat Leave end of week 19 as my enhanced pay has ended so I don't lose it, if I'd curtailed earlier then I'd lose any left over enhanced pay. Weeks 20-24½: 'at work' on full pay (but its summer hols so don't actually have to go in) Then I go on SPL at the start of term in September. My partner just took Paternity leave as normal.

We don’t have SPL as my other half hasn’t been at his current role for enough time to qualify for their policy, he has two weeks unpaid leave, it’s better for us if we take the full mat leave my company provide. I haven’t booked any leave yet we are just thinking about how we can make it work. We have an unlimited leave policy but can’t take more than two weeks continually so I was just seeing how I could make that work (if at all). Which sounds like I can’t!

Could you take 2 weeks before and 2 weeks at the end?

Or you stop mat leave then take 2 weeks holiday and then take SPL yourself and another holiday etc?

Me and my partner split it. I did 3 months then he did 3 months and then I did 6 months.

@Charlotte The eligibility for ShPL if only the mother wants to take is... For the mother to take SPL and ShPP, both the mother’s partner and the mother must meet some eligibility criteria. The mother’s partner must: have been working for at least 26 weeks out of the 66 weeks before the week the baby’s due (the 26 weeks do not need to be in a row) have earned at least £390 in total in 13 of the 66 weeks (add up the highest paying weeks - they do not need to be in a row) The mother must: have been employed continuously by the same employer for at least 26 weeks by the end of the 15th week before the due date stay with the same employer until they start their SPL. So if he's employed now and you're due next October, provided he meets the earning criteria, then you are eligible.

Oh no @Carys I’m due this October coming. He started with his current company four months ago (has had continued employment but not with the same employer) so we don’t qualify for it (so we have been told). I would take my leave from October 2024 return to work April 2025 and we were hoping to go for the month of July 2025

That’s a great suggestion @Carys on how to make things more flexible. Perhaps if you took 2 weeks annual leave then your maternity, 2 weeks annual leave then onto SPL… Some companies who offer enhanced pay are happy to pay it in a different way than that set out in the policy as long as the total remains the same so they might be able to offer some flexibility to pay during a period of SPL if you took less maternity The fact they offer 4m full, 2m half and unlimited annual leave suggests they are pretty family friendly and looking to support employees

@Charlotte ah, sorry - saw you were on October 2025 babies group and assumed... though just realised you wouldn't be pregnant yet if that was the case 😂