Discover the UK’s Best Parental Leave Policies

There Is A Growing Awareness…

That building a diverse and inclusive workplace is not a challenge that can be easily solved by only creating initiatives aimed solely at women. Initiatives to support new mums in the workplace remain of crucial importance, but an additional focus on new dads has the benefit of re-framing the conversation away from the prevailing binary gender stereotypes of carer and “all in” breadwinner.

Full Pay, equal, parental leave lies at the heart of successful gender equality initiatives.

Our Database shows:

👏 129 Equal Parental Leave offers.

👏 a further 81 organisations equalising via Shared Parental Leave.

👏 184 organisations in the UK who do offer 6 weeks full pay for dads (ringfenced, not hidden within Shared Parental Leave)

“when looking for a new role, 43% of new dads look for paid paternity leave”

We know that more time spent looking after their children is good for dads’ well-being and mental health, unlocks workplace opportunities for their partners, improves equality at home and redefines, for everyone, what “being committed” looks like in the workplace. In addition, parental leave policies are increasingly seen as a point of difference in both recruitment and retention.

Research from Zurich discovered that:

“when looking for a new role, 43% of new dads look for paid paternity leave above bonus (42%) and salary (27%)”, which isn’t surprising when the same data showed that “of those that take no time at all, seven out of 10 can’t afford to”, while “a third of new dads were forced to take holiday while 12% resorted to unpaid leave in order to spend time with their new babies.”

The Paternity Leave (Amendment) Regulations 2024 now enables fathers to split paternity leave into two, one-week blocks, but in the context of woefully poorly paid statutory provision in the UK it feels very much like rearranging the deckchairs.

The Fatherhood Institute has shown that a father on average UK earnings stands to lose £1,000 if he takes two weeks’ leave at the statutory rate. Find out more about the FI’s 6 weeks for dads campaign here, and check out its Fatherhood Factsheets, including one about Paternity and Parental Leave and another on Sharing the Earning and Caregiving.

However, while we wait for legislation to catch up with societal trends, you can search, compare and benchmark the best parental leave provision in the UK.

Inspiring Dads’ Parental Leave Database

You’ll find this database much easier to navigate and use the functionality on a desktop device.

Weeks leave are shown as full pay.

See HERE for valuable tips on how to use and more explanation of the terminology used.

hOW TO NAVIGATE THE DATABASE

Employees and Individuals should check for eligibility requirements and changes in policy. Additional eligibility criteria may be required in all instances. Some eligibility criteria will be based on Qualifiying Week (QW) and some on EWC (Expected week of childbirth.)

Parental Leave Database Terminology

Leave is indicated as weeks of fully paid leave, with plus or minus indicators.
- ‘26 plus’ for Baillie Gifford because 26 weeks is at full pay and 13 weeks at half pay.
- ‘26 minus’ for Mars because their 26 weeks are at 90% of salary.
‘Equal leave’ status is where maternity and paternity leave are equal. Some organisations use shared parental leave rather than paternity leave to equalise their offer. This is indicated as ‘Equal via SPL.’
Industry sectors can be difficult to define, but are used here to support what we consider to be the most relevant benchmarking.
UK size - some organisations have large global employee or PR footprints. This database focuses on UK employee numbers.
Maternity leave is sometimes described as ‘primary carer’ leave, while paternity leave can be ‘secondary carer’ leave.
Organisations may describe adoption or fostering leave as either primary or secondary carer leave.