Family leave rights for part-time student workers

The key distinction: employee or worker

The phrase “part-time student worker” hides the single most important question, which is your employment status rather than your hours or your being a student. In England and Wales the main family leave rights are almost all reserved for employees, meaning people working under a contract of employment. A person who is genuinely a “worker” in the narrower sense (for example some casual, agency or zero-hours arrangements without an employment contract) does not get the leave rights, though they may still get certain statutory payments if they meet the tax and National Insurance tests.

Two further points reduce a lot of confusion. First, being part-time makes no difference in principle. The Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000 mean a part-time employee is entitled to the same family leave rights as a full-time employee, and any pay element is simply calculated on your actual earnings. Second, being a student is legally irrelevant. If you are employed, your rights flow from the employment, not from your studies. So the real questions are whether you are an employee, how long you have been employed, and how much you earn.

Maternity leave and pay

Statutory Maternity Leave is a day-one right for all employees, regardless of hours or length of service. You are entitled to up to 52 weeks (26 weeks ordinary maternity leave and 26 weeks additional maternity leave). To claim it you must tell your employer, by the end of the 15th week before your expected week of childbirth, that you are pregnant, the week the baby is due, and when you want the leave to start.

Statutory Maternity Pay is separate and has qualifying conditions. You must have been continuously employed for at least 26 weeks up to and into the 15th week before the expected week of childbirth (the qualifying week), and your average weekly earnings must be at or above the Lower Earnings Limit for National Insurance, which is £125 a week for 2025/26. If you qualify, SMP is paid for up to 39 weeks: 90 per cent of your average weekly earnings for the first six weeks, then the lower of 90 per cent of average weekly earnings or the standard rate (£187.18 a week for 2025/26) for the remaining 33 weeks.

This is where part-time or low-paid student work often falls short: many student jobs pay below the Lower Earnings Limit, or the employment has not lasted 26 weeks by the qualifying week. If you do not qualify for SMP, you may instead be able to claim Maternity Allowance from the Department for Work and Pensions. Maternity Allowance has a much wider reach because it does not require you to be an employee: broadly, you must have been employed or self-employed for at least 26 of the 66 weeks before the expected week of childbirth, and have earned at least £30 a week in at least 13 of those weeks. This is often the route for part-time or casual student workers.

Paternity leave and pay

Statutory Paternity Leave is available to employees who are the father, or the partner of the mother or of the primary adopter, and who have or expect to have responsibility for the child. To qualify you must have been continuously employed for at least 26 weeks by the end of the 15th week before the expected week of childbirth (or by the relevant matching week for adoption). Leave is one or two weeks, and under the rules that changed in April 2024 the two weeks can now be taken separately and at any point within 52 weeks of the birth, with shorter notice than before.

Statutory Paternity Pay again requires average weekly earnings at or above the Lower Earnings Limit (£125). The current standard rate is £187.18 a week or 90 per cent of average weekly earnings if lower. A part-time student worker who has not built up 26 weeks of continuous employment, or who earns below the threshold, will not qualify, and there is no equivalent of Maternity Allowance for paternity.

Adoption leave and pay

Statutory Adoption Leave mirrors maternity leave for the main adopter of a child: it is a day-one right for employees, giving up to 52 weeks. Statutory Adoption Pay follows the same pattern and conditions as SMP, requiring 26 weeks continuous employment by the relevant matching week and earnings at or above the Lower Earnings Limit. The other member of a couple can usually take paternity leave and pay, or the couple can use Shared Parental Leave.

Shared Parental Leave and pay

Shared Parental Leave lets eligible parents share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay in the first year. It is more restrictive because it requires both a continuity test for the parent taking the leave (an employee with at least 26 weeks continuous employment by the qualifying or matching week, still employed when taking the leave) and an employment and earnings test for the other parent. For part-time student workers this often fails on the continuity or earnings side, so it is worth checking both parents’ positions carefully before relying on it.

Neonatal Care Leave and Pay

This is a new right that applies where a baby is born on or after 6 April 2025 and receives neonatal care starting within 28 days of birth and lasting seven full days or more in a row. Statutory Neonatal Care Leave is a day-one right for employees: it does not matter how long you have worked for your employer or how many hours you work, so long as you are classed as an employee, are employed in England, Scotland or Wales, and give the required notice. You can take up to 12 weeks (one week for each full week your baby is in neonatal care, up to the 12-week maximum), and it must be taken within 68 weeks of the birth. It is additional to maternity, paternity, adoption or shared parental leave.

Statutory Neonatal Care Pay has the usual financial conditions: at least 26 weeks continuous employment and average weekly earnings of at least £125. So a part-time student worker may well qualify for the leave itself as a day-one right, yet not qualify for the pay if they are newly employed or earn below the threshold.

Unpaid parental leave, carer’s leave and time off for dependants

Ordinary parental leave (distinct from Shared Parental Leave) allows an employee with at least one year’s continuous service to take up to 18 weeks of unpaid leave per child, up to the child’s 18th birthday, normally in blocks of one week and capped at four weeks per child per year.

Carer’s Leave, introduced in April 2024, is a day-one right for employees to take up to one week of unpaid leave in a rolling 12-month period to care for a dependant with a long-term care need.

Time off for dependants is a separate day-one right for employees to take a reasonable amount of unpaid time off to deal with unexpected emergencies involving a dependant.

How part-time and student status actually affect these rights

To summarise the practical effect: none of these rights is reduced or removed simply because the work is part-time or the person is a student. What matters is whether you are an employee (needed for almost all the leave rights and for the day-one rights such as maternity leave, adoption leave and neonatal care leave), how long you have been continuously employed (needed for the pay elements and for paternity, shared parental and ordinary parental leave), and your average weekly earnings (needed to reach the £125 Lower Earnings Limit for statutory pay). Low-paid or short-tenure student jobs frequently satisfy the leave conditions but fall short on the pay conditions, in which case Maternity Allowance is the main fallback for a new mother and there is generally no fallback payment for the other categories.

Missing facts that would change the answer

The precise answer depends on several things you have not stated. Whether you are genuinely an employee or only a worker is decisive for the leave rights. Your length of continuous employment at the relevant qualifying or matching week determines the pay elements and some leave rights. Your average weekly earnings over the relevant reference period determine whether you cross the £125 threshold. If you hold more than one job, earnings and weeks can sometimes be counted differently across employers. And for neonatal care, the date of birth and the length and timing of neonatal care matter.

It is also worth being aware that the Employment Rights Bill going through Parliament is expected to turn paternity leave and ordinary parental leave into day-one rights and make other changes, so if your situation arises later the qualifying periods for some of these rights may have changed.

Practical next steps

1. Check your paperwork to establish whether you are described and treated as an employee, and calculate your continuous service and average weekly earnings, because these three facts decide almost everything.

2. Ask your employer or payroll for confirmation of your entitlement in writing, and use the eligibility calculators on GOV.UK for maternity, paternity, adoption, shared parental and neonatal care pay to see exactly which payments you cross the thresholds for.

3. If you are pregnant and may not qualify for SMP, get an MA1 Maternity Allowance claim ready, since it needs different evidence and has its own timing.

4. If your employer refuses a day-one leave right such as maternity, adoption or neonatal care leave, or treats you worse for being part-time, raise it first in writing, then through the grievance procedure, and keep in mind ACAS early conciliation and, ultimately, the Employment Tribunal, which normally has a strict three-month-less-one-day time limit from the act complained of.

5. If your genuine employment status is unclear or disputed, that is the first thing to resolve, because it changes which of these rights you can claim at all.