Maternity Leave Rights: What Employers Can’t Do

Maternity leave is designed to protect your job, not to quietly sideline your career. Yet for many professionals, a long period away from the office still feels risky. Common worries include being passed over for promotion, finding priorities shifted on return, or being edged out of decisions that used to run through you. UK law gives significant protection during pregnancy and maternity leave, and those protections do not expire the moment you walk back through the door.

Knowing what an employer is not allowed to do is the best way to spot problems early and protect both your current role and where you are heading next.

The Foundation of Your Legal Protection

Your rights during maternity leave sit in three main places: the Employment Rights Act 1996, the Equality Act 2010, and the Maternity and Parental Leave etc. Regulations 1999. Together, these create a protected period that begins when you notify your employer of the pregnancy and runs throughout your maternity leave. That protection was significantly extended by the Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Act 2023 and the regulations that followed it in April 2024.

At the core of these rights is your entitlement to return, to continue accruing contractual benefits such as annual leave, and not to be treated badly because of your absence. Your employment is not on pause while you are away. Your rights are active and enforceable throughout.

Redundancy Protection: The 18-Month Rule

Redundancy protection for new and expectant parents has been significantly expanded. From 6 April 2024, the protected period now runs from the point you notify your employer of your pregnancy until 18 months after the birth of your child. Returning to work no longer removes you from protection.

Within that 18-month window, if a redundancy situation arises, your employer is legally required to offer you any suitable alternative vacancy in the organisation before offering it to anyone else. This is not a matter of employer discretion. It is a priority right.

A dismissal that breaches this rule is likely to be automatically unfair. Automatic unfair dismissal claims connected to pregnancy or maternity do not require two years of continuous service, so protection applies regardless of how long you have been with the employer. The extended 18-month window was designed specifically to close the loophole of employers waiting for a return from leave before starting a redundancy process.

What Employers Cannot Do

1. Subject You to Maternity Detriment

Any treatment that puts you at a disadvantage because of your pregnancy or maternity leave can amount to maternity detriment. Being passed over for promotion, receiving negative feedback linked to your absence, or having responsibilities quietly stripped away without consultation can all fall into this category. Even subtle changes are unlawful if the reason behind them is your time off on maternity. Tribunals have consistently held that holding back a professional career because of maternity leave is a form of discrimination.

2. Overlook You for Alternative Roles During a Redundancy

As above, during the protected period you must be treated as a priority for any suitable alternative vacancy. If a vacancy exists, you are qualified for it, and it is offered to someone else instead of you, the dismissal that follows is likely to be both unlawful and automatically unfair.

3. Pressure You into Keeping in Touch Days

Keeping in Touch (KIT) days are designed to help you stay connected to the workplace during your leave, but they are entirely voluntary. An employer cannot compel you to attend, and cannot treat your decision not to take them as a sign of reduced commitment. Linking bonus entitlement or performance ratings to KIT day attendance is likely to amount to detriment or discrimination, depending on the circumstances. You are entitled to be fully off during your leave without paying a price for it.

4. Downgrade Your Role on Return

After ordinary maternity leave (the first 26 weeks), you have the right to return to the exact same job on the same terms. After additional maternity leave (weeks 27 to 52), you still have the right to return to the same role if it is reasonably practicable, and if it is not, to a suitable alternative on terms no less favourable than before.

“No less favourable” is the key phrase. Subtly stripping away responsibilities, moving you into a parallel but less senior role, removing direct reports, or shifting your reporting line in a way that reduces your influence are all common tactics, and tribunals have penalised them.

5. Mishandling Flexible Working Requests

The right to request flexible working has been a day-one right since 6 April 2024. Employees can make up to two requests in any 12-month period, and the employer must respond within two months. Employers can refuse a request on one or more of eight statutory business grounds, but they must consult with you before refusing and give proper reasons.

From 2027, further changes under the Employment Rights Act 2025 will require employers to show that any refusal is reasonable, and to set out in writing why they consider it so. The eight statutory grounds remain unchanged, but the bar for refusing shifted upwards.

A rushed, poorly reasoned, or tick-box refusal is more open to challenge now, and will be more open to challenge once those reforms take effect. In these disputes, it is often the quality and documenting of the decision-making process that decides the outcome, not just the decision itself.

Neonatal Care Leave and Pay

Neonatal care leave is a recent and valuable addition to parental rights. Under the Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023, which came into force on 6 April 2025, eligible parents can take up to 12 weeks of additional leave (and in many cases pay) where a baby receives neonatal care for a continuous period of seven days or more, starting within the first 28 days of life.

This is a separate statutory entitlement. It is not part of your maternity leave and must not be absorbed into it. The leave is a day-one right, although statutory neonatal care pay requires the usual service and earnings conditions. Employers who fail to distinguish neonatal care leave from maternity leave are likely to be in breach of their statutory obligations.

Bonuses and Performance Pay

Disputes over bonuses are one of the most common issues raised by senior professionals returning from maternity leave, and they often carry the highest financial stakes. The basic principle is clear: simply taking maternity leave itself does not automatically disqualify you from receiving every type of bonus.

The detail is more nuanced. 

For senior professionals, the precise terms of the bonus scheme, the contract, and the plan rules often matter far more than the general principle. These disputes turn on the drafting, and that is where specialist advice makes the most difference.

Settlement Agreements

Not every maternity rights dispute is best resolved at a tribunal. Many are concluded through negotiated settlement agreements, particularly for senior employees or during wider restructuring. Handled properly, a settlement can deliver a clean break with a financial package that reflects the real value of your claims, while at the same time protecting your reputation and your ability to get a new role elsewhere.

The key is to ensure the terms reflect the true value of what is at stake. That means pricing in not only the immediate financial loss but the broader impact on career trajectory, and structuring the payment in a way that protects your net recovery.

Protecting Your Career

The law gives significant protection during and after maternity leave, but breaches are often subtle. A missed promotion round, a quietly shifted role, a bonus calculated on the wrong basis: these are rarely announced as decisions. They show up as patterns, and the earlier they are recognised, the easier they are to address. The expansion of the 18-month redundancy protection and the introduction of neonatal care leave have strengthened the position considerably and clear legal advice will help you rely on that protection.

If you are on maternity leave, about to go on maternity leave, or returning to a situation that has changed in ways you did not expect, David advises senior executives and employees on where the law has been breached, what can be done about it, and how to protect both the immediate outcome and the next stage of your career.