Reasonable Adjustments at Work: Pay Implications of Reduced Hours, Access to Work and Phased Returns (2026/27)

The legal duty behind reasonable adjustments

Under the Equality Act 2010, an employer must make reasonable adjustments where a disabled employee would otherwise be put at a substantial disadvantage compared with non-disabled colleagues. This covers three broad areas: changes to how things are done (such as working hours or duties), changes to physical features of the workplace, and providing extra aids or services.

Common workplace adjustments with pay implications include:

• Reduced or flexible contracted hours
• A phased return to work after illness or hospitalisation
• Home or hybrid working to cut commuting demands
• Additional paid or unpaid breaks
• A temporary or permanent change of role or duties
• Equipment, software or support funded through Access to Work

Crucially, the duty to adjust doesn't automatically mean a pay cut. Many adjustments cost nothing and change how work is done, not how much of it is done. Pay changes really only bite when the adjustment involves genuinely working fewer hours or a lower-graded role.

Reduced hours: how the pay maths actually works

When reduced hours are agreed as a permanent adjustment, pay is normally pro-rated against your existing full-time equivalent salary or hourly rate.

Worked example 1. Tom is on £36,000 a year for a 37.5-hour week (about £18.46/hour full-time equivalent). As a reasonable adjustment for a chronic pain condition, he permanently reduces to 30 hours a week. His new salary is £36,000 × (30/37.5) = £28,800 a year — a drop of £7,200 gross before tax and National Insurance changes are factored in. You can check the exact take-home impact using the

calculator alongside .

Worked example 2. Fatima earns the National Living Wage of £12.71 an hour (2026/27 rate for ages 21+) across a 35-hour week, giving gross pay of about £444.85 a week. As an adjustment for fatigue-related symptoms, she moves to 25 hours a week, giving £317.75 a week gross — still above the SSP Lower Earnings Limit of £129, so any future sickness absence would still qualify for SSP. Use the

calculator to check compliance whenever hours or pay change.

Worked example 3 — a phased return, not a permanent cut. Contrast this with Deniz, whose reduced hours are a temporary phased return after major surgery, not a permanent adjustment. His employer pays full pro-rata pay for hours worked plus SSP (£123.25 a week, from day one under 2026/27 rules) for the remaining contracted hours he's still signed off for, rather than simply pro-rating his full salary down. On a £40,000 salary (£769.23/week) working 20 of his usual 37.5 hours, he'd get roughly £410 pro-rata pay for hours worked plus £123.25 SSP, around £533 a week — notably more than a straight 20/37.5 pro-rata of his full salary (£410), because the sick pay is topping up the unworked hours rather than being withheld.

Access to Work: funding support, not replacing wages

Access to Work is a DWP grant scheme, separate from your employer's payroll, aimed at people whose disability or health condition affects how they do their job. It can fund things like:

• Specialist equipment or software (for example screen readers, ergonomic keyboards, noise-cancelling headsets)
• A support worker, job coach, or BSL interpreter
• Extra travel-to-work costs where public transport or driving is difficult
• Mental health support in some cases

The grant is designed so that a disabled employee can keep doing their existing role at their existing pay, rather than being moved into a lower-paid or reduced-hours position purely for lack of support. It is not a wage top-up or benefit payment itself — it funds the support, and your wages continue to be set by your employment contract as normal. Applying doesn't affect your tax code or payslip directly, though any equipment or support provided through your employer is generally not treated as a taxable benefit in kind when it's there to meet a disability-related need.

Knock-on effects: pension, tax and student loans

Any adjustment that changes your pay will ripple into other calculations:

• Pension contributions. Auto-enrolment minimum contributions (8% total, typically 5% employee and 3% employer) apply to "qualifying earnings" between £6,240 and £50,270 a year. Lower pay from reduced hours means lower contributions in cash terms, though the percentage stays the same. Model this with the
  ƒ

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  Auto-Enrolment Shortfall Calculator

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  calculator.
• Income tax and National Insurance. With the Personal Allowance frozen at £12,570, dropping your income through reduced hours can move some or all of your pay below the higher-rate threshold of £50,270, or in some cases below the Personal Allowance entirely, changing your effective tax rate. The
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  Work out how much income tax you owe using the latest 2025/26 UK tax bands.

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  calculator shows this clearly.
• Student loans. Repayments only apply once income clears your plan's threshold (£26,900 Plan 1, £29,385 Plan 2, £33,795 Plan 4, £25,000 Plan 5, £21,000 Postgraduate Loan, all in 2026/27). A pay drop from adjustments can reduce or eliminate monthly repayments while it lasts.

Getting the adjustment — and the pay conversation — right

Before agreeing to any adjustment that changes your hours or pay, get the arrangement confirmed in writing: is it permanent or time-limited, is it pro-rata or topped up by sick pay, and how will it be reviewed. If you believe your employer is refusing a reasonable adjustment, or reducing your pay or opportunities because of your disability rather than because of a genuine, proportionate change in hours worked, that may be unlawful discrimination worth raising with Acas or a union rep.

Financially, run the numbers before you sign anything. Comparing your current pay against the post-adjustment figure using the

and calculators will show exactly how much of any gross reduction is absorbed by lower tax and National Insurance, and how much genuinely comes out of your monthly budget.