Overview
Shared parental leave (SPL) is a great option if you and your partner want more flexibility in how you share your leave time to look after your new addition! You can take SPL if you’re having a baby, using a surrogate to have a baby, or adopting.
If you’re interested in taking SPL, you might want to have a look on the Gov.uk website, and have a chat with our Hiring and Capacity Manager about it in more detail.
This eligibility tool might be helpful to find out if you and your partner are eligible for SPL and pay, and this SPL and pay planning tool might be helpful in deciding how you want to share your leave.
Taking shared parental leave
When to tell us
To claim SPL and pay, you need to tell us your intended leave dates at least 8 weeks before you want to start your leave. However, the sooner you can let us know what your plans are for your leave the better, so we can plan for your absence.
What to tell us
You should let us know your plans for how much leave you want to take and when you want to take it. As mentioned above, you can change these plans later but you need to give us at least 8 weeks’ notice.
You don’t need to take SPL all in one go - you and your partner can take up to 3 separate blocks of SPL each. You can take your leave at the same time or different times to your partner.
When your leave can start
You can take SPL from the day the child is born or placed with you, up to 1 year after this date.
For SPL to start, you or your partner have to end maternity or adoption leave before the maximum 52 weeks is taken. You can start SPL while your partner is still on maternity or adoption leave as long as they’ve given binding notice to end it by a certain date.
When your leave can end
You and your partner can share up to 50 weeks of SPL. The amount of shared parental leave that you can take depends on the amount of maternity or adoption leave that you or your partner have already taken. For example, if you take 11 weeks of maternity leave (not including the 2 weeks of Compulsory Maternity Leave) then you can share 39 weeks of SPL with your partner.
SPL has to be taken within 1 year from the date the child is born or placed with you.
Pay during shared parental leave
You’re entitled to get statutory shared parental pay (ShPP) during your SPL, if you meet the eligibility requirements below.
More information can be found on the Gov.uk website.
Coming back to work
We’ll try to make coming back to work as easy as possible after your leave!
If you’re thinking about changing your hours when you come back, you can find out more about it on our Flexible Working page.
SPLIT days
During your shared parental leave you can take 20 shared parental leave in touch (SPLIT) days. These are days when you can come back to work without ending your leave (but they don’t extend your period of leave). This can be any work under your job description, and include any training or activity that keeps you in touch with the workplace. SPLIT days have no impact on your entitlement to statutory shared parental pay.
Annual leave entitlement
Your annual leave entitlement will continue to accrue throughout your leave, i.e. though you’re not working during your leave, you are still entitled to take all of your annual leave from this period of time. For example, if you took the full 52 weeks of maternity leave, you would accrue 28 days of annual leave.
Annual leave accrued during your leave needs to be taken within the holiday year (1st Jan to 31st Dec) once you come back to work. Often people chose to take their annual leave in one go at the end of their leave (effectively extending their leave period), before they return to work.