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HMRC warning to seasonal workers to check their pay

ended 15. December 2025

HMRC is urging workers, including seasonal staff, to ‘Check Your Pay’. It says temporary seasonal staff are legally entitled to receive at least the same minimum pay rates as other workers. In 2024 to 2025 HMRC identified wage arrears of £5.8 million due to 25,200 underpaid UK workers and issued around 750 penalties totalling £4.2 million to non-compliant employers.

  • What is your advice to workers this festive season?
  • Is the warning from HMRC a good idea?
  • What is your message to businesses paying below the minimum wage?

Responses asap.

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Editor
Kate Underwood
Founder & Chief People Strategist at Kate Underwood HR and Training
If your payroll’s playing Grinch, HMRC will play judge, jury and invoice. Workers this festive season: don’t trust payroll on vibes. Check your age-band minimum wage rate, check your hours, and check deductions. Unpaid trial shifts, “mandatory training”, uniform costs, till shortages, travel between sites, and accommodation charges can all drag you below the legal rate. Keep rotas, clock-ins and payslips. If it’s wrong, raise it in writing. Is HMRC’s warning a good idea? Yes. Seasonal staff are exactly who get short-changed because they’re new, busy, and scared of being dropped. The law doesn’t do “it’s only temp”. Message to businesses paying below minimum wage: stop calling it an admin error. Wage underpayments are one of the fastest ways to end up in a tribunal. Don’t be that employer this year. Do a wage check now and fix it before HMRC does.