A veterinary practice's biggest cost is its people, and 2026 and 2027 bring more employment law change than any two years since the pandemic. This guide sets out the payroll figures you are working with in 2026/27 and then every Employment Rights Act 2025 date that lands on a practice — including the one on 30 October 2026 that a client-facing business should be planning for now.
Guide · Updated August 2026
Everything in this section applies for the tax year 2026/27, and the wage rates from 1 April 2026.
| Item | 2026/27 |
|---|---|
| Employer (secondary) Class 1 NIC | 15% above the secondary threshold |
| Secondary Threshold | £5,000 a year |
| Class 1A on benefits, and Class 1B | 15% |
| Employee NIC | 8% from the Primary Threshold to the Upper Earnings Limit, 2% above |
| Lower Earnings Limit | £6,708 |
| Primary Threshold | £12,570 |
| Upper Earnings Limit | £50,270 |
| Freeport / Investment Zone upper secondary threshold | £25,000 a year |
| Employment Allowance | £10,500 |
| National Living Wage, 21 and over | £12.71 |
| 18 to 20 rate | £10.85 |
| Under 18 and apprentice rate | £8.00 |
| Auto-enrolment earnings trigger | £10,000 |
| Qualifying earnings, lower level | £6,240 |
| Student loan Plan 2 threshold | £29,385 |
| Student loan Plan 5 threshold | £25,000 |
The £5,000 secondary threshold is the figure that changed the economics of employing people. It is low, so employer National Insurance now starts early and applies to almost every member of the practice team including part-time reception and kennel staff.
Worked example — illustrative. A practice with 14 employees and a total pay bill of £520,000, everyone employed for the full year and earning above the secondary threshold. Earnings above the threshold are £520,000 − (14 × £5,000) = £450,000. Employer NIC at 15% is £67,500. The £10,500 Employment Allowance reduces that to £57,000 — about 11% on top of the pay bill.
Two Employment Allowance points matter. A company with only one director cannot claim where that director is the only employee liable for secondary Class 1 NIC, which rules out most single-vet personal service companies. And it cannot be claimed for workers within the off-payroll working rules. On the other hand the £100,000 Class 1 liability cap was removed from April 2025, so larger practices and groups that were previously excluded by size can now claim.
The three-tier wage structure creates a step every time a younger team member has a birthday, and the step is bigger than most rotas allow for.
Worked example — illustrative. A veterinary care assistant on 37.5 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, which is 1,950 hours:
Add the auto-enrolment position on top: the earnings trigger is £10,000 and qualifying earnings start at £6,240, so almost every full-time and many part-time practice roles are in a pension scheme. Model the wage rates against your rota before April rather than after it, because in a practice with several assistants and student nurses these steps land together.
The Act received Royal Assent in December 2025 and is being commenced in stages. This is the whole timetable as the government's own implementation page has it.
The SSP change is the one that shows up in a practice's payroll immediately. Removing the Lower Earnings Limit brings lower-paid and part-time staff into SSP who were previously outside it, and removing the waiting period means sick pay is due from the first qualifying day rather than the fourth. In a business where a single absence in a small clinical team can close a consulting list, that is both a cost and a rota question.
A great deal of commentary published in 2025 said unfair dismissal protection would apply from day one, from 2026. The government's own implementation timeline now gives January 2027 and a six-month qualifying period. If your contracts, probation periods or handbook were rewritten on the earlier reporting, they were rewritten to the wrong rule. Work from the primary source.
Two changes land that day and they interact badly with the way veterinary work is actually done.
The first is the duty to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment. "All reasonable steps" is a higher bar than having a policy. It implies risk assessment, training that people have actually done, a reporting route that works when the person to report to is the practice principal, and evidence that you took the steps rather than intended to.
The second is liability for third-party harassment of employees. In a veterinary practice the third parties are clients, and they arrive frightened, grieving, angry about a bill, or all three at once. Reception and nursing staff absorb most of it. From that date, harassment by a client is not simply an unpleasant part of the job — it is something the employer can be liable for having failed to prevent.
What a practice can reasonably do before then: a written policy that names client conduct specifically, not just colleague conduct; a route to report an incident that does not require the employee to raise it with the person who might be minimising it; a documented process for warning or declining to continue treating a client whose behaviour crosses the line, agreed with the clinical team in advance; and a record. The CMA's complaints remedies push in the same direction, requiring a written complaints process, a complaint log and acknowledgement of a complaint within five working days — so one piece of work can serve both.
The extension of the tribunal time limit from three to six months on 1 October 2026 belongs in the same paragraph. It doubles the window in which a leaver can bring a claim, which makes the quality of your records at the time of an incident considerably more valuable than it is now.
Two facts about veterinary nursing sit at the intersection of employment and regulation, and both regularly surprise employers.
The title "veterinary nurse" is not protected by law. Anyone may use it, regardless of training. The RCVS maintains a statutory Register of Veterinary Nurses — all veterinary nurses transferred to it by 17 February 2015 under a supplemental Royal Charter — and proposed statutory protection of the title to Defra in 2021; it forms part of the current Veterinary Surgeons Act reform proposals, which are not law. So a job title on a rota tells you nothing about registration status. Whether a member of your team is registered is a question you have to ask and record, because it determines what they may lawfully do.
Schedule 3 of the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966 is what determines that. Only registered and student veterinary nurses may carry out, on delegation from a veterinary surgeon employed in the same practice, any medical treatment or any minor surgery not involving entry into a body cavity, and only where the animal is under the care of a registered veterinary surgeon and the nurse acts at that surgeon's direction. Every condition in that sentence is load-bearing: registered or student status, delegation, same practice, animal under care, acting at the vet's direction.
The employment consequence is straightforward. Registration status belongs in your personnel records alongside the right-to-work check, with the renewal date, because RVN registration runs on a 1 November to 31 October cycle. The annual renewal fee was £85 for the year from 1 November 2025. Veterinary surgeons renew separately: £431 for 2026–27, or £468 if paid between 1 and 31 May, due on or before 30 April 2026, with removal from the Register if unpaid by 31 May. A vet removed from the Register cannot practise, which makes a diary reminder a payroll control rather than an administrative nicety.
Payroll in a veterinary practice is not complicated so much as unforgiving: the figures are fixed, the dates are published, and the cost of missing one is entirely avoidable. If you would rather it simply ran, that is what our practice payroll service does. And if you are weighing up how the practice is structured at the same time, our incorporation guide covers the employer NIC and Employment Allowance consequences of each option.
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Employer secondary Class 1 National Insurance is 15% on earnings above a secondary threshold of £5,000 a year, with Class 1A on benefits and Class 1B both also at 15%. Because the threshold is low, employer NIC applies to almost every member of a practice team, including part-time roles. On a pay bill of £520,000 across 14 employees all earning above the threshold, the charge is 15% of £450,000, which is £67,500, reduced to £57,000 by the £10,500 Employment Allowance. Employees pay 8% between £12,570 and £50,270 and 2% above that.
From 1 April 2026 the National Living Wage is £12.71 an hour for workers aged 21 and over, £10.85 for those aged 18 to 20, and £8.00 for under-18s and apprentices. The step between the 18-to-20 rate and the 21-and-over rate is the one that catches practices out: on 37.5 hours a week for 52 weeks, moving someone from £10.85 to £12.71 adds £3,627 of pay plus £544.05 of employer National Insurance, so £4,171.05 a year for one person. Model birthdays falling during the year, not just the April uplift.
January 2027, and it becomes a six-month qualifying period rather than a day-one right. That matters because a great deal of commentary published in 2025 reported it as day-one protection arriving in 2026. The government's own implementation timeline gives January 2027 for the qualifying period cut to six months, together with uncapped compensatory awards and fire-and-rehire protections. If your contracts, probation periods or staff handbook were rewritten on the earlier reporting, they reflect a rule that is not the one being introduced. Work from the primary timeline and revise before January 2027.
Two things. Employers come under a duty to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment, which is a higher bar than simply having a policy and implies risk assessment, completed training, a reporting route that works, and evidence that the steps were taken. And employers become liable for third-party harassment of employees, which in a veterinary practice means harassment by clients. Reception and nursing staff absorb most client anger, so the practical work is a policy naming client conduct, a reporting route that bypasses the principal if needed, an agreed process for declining to continue treating a client, and records.
Schedule 3 of the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966 allows registered and student veterinary nurses to carry out, on delegation from a veterinary surgeon employed in the same practice, any medical treatment or any minor surgery not involving entry into a body cavity, where the animal is under the care of a registered veterinary surgeon and the nurse acts at that surgeon's direction. Every element counts. Note also that the title veterinary nurse is not protected by law, so a job title proves nothing: registration status belongs in your personnel records, with the renewal date, since the cycle runs 1 November to 31 October.
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