Deductions, hours and complaints
Sleep-in shifts and on-call time: what must be paid
Enter your age, the hours you were awake to work during the night and the flat payment for the sleep-in: the tool checks the payment covers those hours.
Sleep-in shift: hours that must be paid
Minimum for the awake hours
£19.07
| Rate | £12.71 |
| Flat payment | £50 |
| Result | covers the awake hours |
Time asleep with a suitable place to sleep does not count; time awake for the purpose of working does.
On a sleep-in shift, where you must stay at or near the workplace overnight and are expected to sleep for all or most of it, the minimum wage is only owed for the time you are awake for the purpose of working. The Supreme Court settled this in a unanimous judgment on 19 March 2021, in Royal Mencap Society v Tomlinson-Blake and Shannon v Rampersad. Two conditions protect the worker. First, for workers paid by the hour or on a salary, the employer must provide suitable sleeping facilities, or the whole shift counts. Second, where you are expected to work for most of the shift and only nap between tasks, the whole shift counts too. A care worker aged 35 woken for one and a half hours of care in a night must receive at least £19.07 for that time at the April 2026 rate of £12.71. On-call time follows a separate rule: being required to stay available at or near the workplace counts, while being on call from home does not.
Unpaid working time and your hourly pay
Real pay per hour worked
£12.00
| Hours that count | 40 |
| Minimum for your age | £12.71 |
| Result | £28.40 short |
Rates and rules read by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Method
What makes a shift a sleep-in
The HMRC guidance on working hours describes a sleep-in by three features: the contract obliges the worker to spend the shift at or near the workplace, usually at night; the worker is expected to sleep for all or most of it; and they are woken only when a particular task needs doing. The care sector is the classic case, but the rule is not limited to it.
The Supreme Court decided that a sleep-in worker is working, for minimum wage purposes, only while awake for the purpose of working. Asleep, or awake for their own reasons, they are not. That ruling, in Royal Mencap Society v Tomlinson-Blake and Shannon v Rampersad, is the reference point HMRC applies today.
Five situations from HMRC's guidance
| Situation | Hours that count |
|---|---|
| Care worker in bed reading for pleasure while keeping a listening ear | None while reading or asleep |
| Night worker in a suitable bed, answering occasional phone calls | Only the time spent on the calls and other duties |
| Security guard allowed to nap in a chair between rounds | The whole shift |
| Care worker woken for an emergency, then not needed and reading a paper for an hour | That hour counts: awake for work |
| Care worker woken so often that little sleep is possible | Likely the whole shift |
The fourth case is easy to miss. Once woken to stand by for an emergency, the worker remains awake for the purpose of working even if they end up doing nothing, so the hour must be paid.
Suitable sleeping facilities
For time work and salaried hours work, the National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015 make the exception depend on the employer providing suitable facilities for sleep. If they do not, the entire shift is working time. Take a 9 hour night at the rate of £12.71 for a worker aged 35: with a proper bed, a £50 flat payment covers up to 3.9 awake hours; without one, the night must be paid at least £114.39, leaving £64.39 owed. From 1 April 2027 the announced rate of £13.21 would raise that night's minimum to £118.89, subject to the regulations being made.
On call: at work or at home
Standby and on-call time count as working time when you are required to be available at or near your workplace. They do not count when you are at home, even if you must stay reachable. HMRC's example is a factory worker called in for an urgent order: while at the factory and waiting for a late delivery, the worker is paid at least the minimum; while at home waiting for the call, they are not. Where you are on call at or near work and allowed to sleep, with suitable facilities, the sleep-in rule above applies instead.
This is different from the waiting time at work that arises in the middle of a normal shift, which always counts.
Live-in and 24 hour care
Some live-in carers are paid a fixed sum for a 24 hour period, with tasks done as and when needed and breaks taken when the client does not need them. HMRC treats that as unmeasured work. The employer then either records every hour worked, or makes a daily average agreement with the worker: in writing, before the pay period starts, setting a realistic estimate of the hours likely to be worked each day. If the agreed average is 5 hours on a day the carer must be available for 12, and they are available for only 6 hours one day, that day counts as 2.5 hours. At £12.71 an hour, five full days at 5 hours must bring at least £317.75.
Use the tool at the top for a single night and the one below to see how unpaid hours in a week drag down your hourly pay. If the payment falls short, the page on reporting underpayment sets out the next steps.