Agricultural Worker Minimum Wage Calculator

Agricultural workers in England are paid under the same National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rules as everyone else, because the Agricultural Wages Board for England was abolished in 2013. The National Living Wage for ages 21 and over is currently £12.71 per hour, with £10.85 for 18 to 20 year olds and £8.00 for workers under 18 and apprentices. Some older Agricultural Wages Orders set higher rates for specialist grades, so it is worth checking whether an existing contract carries one before assuming the statutory floor is the whole answer.

Workers are entitled to holiday pay of 5.6 weeks per year (28 days), sick pay and the accommodation offset where housing is provided by the employer. In England overtime rates are a matter for the contract, whereas the Welsh and Scottish orders set them. Statutory Sick Pay runs at £123.25 a week, or 80% of normal weekly earnings if lower, from the first day of sickness. Tied accommodation must be fit for human habitation under the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018, and deductions for it are capped at £77.70 a week by the National Minimum Wage accommodation offset. Working Time Regulations apply on farms as elsewhere, with agricultural derogations covering certain kinds of seasonal work.

This calculator works out weekly and monthly gross pay based on the nation you work in, your grade or age band, hours worked and any overtime. It also shows holiday entitlement in hours. On top of the gross wage an employer pays National Insurance and auto-enrolment pension contributions. Employer National Insurance runs at 15% on earnings above £5,000 a year per employee, a threshold that changed in April 2025, and auto-enrolment adds 3% from the employer alongside 5% from the worker. Those two together are what turn an hourly rate into the real cost of employing someone.

Scotland does not use graded rates at all. The Agricultural Wages (Scotland) Order, now in its 30th edition and effective from 1 April 2026, sets a single minimum of £12.71 an hour for every agriculture worker, in line with the National Living Wage. Two modifiers apply. Apprentices are paid £8.00 an hour for their first 18 months, which covers workers under 19 and those aged 19 or over in their first year studying an SCQF Level 4/5 agriculture or horticulture qualification. Anyone holding an SCQF Level 6/7 qualification or higher earns a premium of at least £1.91 an hour on top. Overtime is paid at 1.5x the worker's hourly rate, and the Scottish Agricultural Wages Board sets the figures.

Wales keeps graded rates, set by the Agricultural Advisory Panel for Wales. No new Order was agreed for 2026, so the Agricultural Wages (Wales) Order 2025 continues from 1 April 2026 with the lower grades uplifted to the statutory minimum. Grade A, the Agricultural Development Worker, and Grade B, the Agricultural Worker, both pay £12.71 for those aged 21 and over, £10.85 at 18 to 20 and £8.00 at 16 to 17. Grade C, the Advanced Worker, earns £13.48, Grade D, the Senior Worker, £14.79, and Grade E, the Manager, £16.23. First-year apprentices are on £8.00. Northern Ireland runs its own Agricultural Wages Board.

Welsh rates come with allowances that have no English equivalent. A dog allowance pays £11.18 per dog per week, night work attracts an extra £2.12 an hour, and a birth or adoption grant of £87.85 is payable per child. The accommodation offset in Wales is £1.97 a week for a house or £6.31 a day for other accommodation. These sit on top of the grade rate rather than inside it, so a shepherd keeping dogs and working nights ends up meaningfully better off than the headline hourly figure suggests.

Seasonal labour arrives through the Seasonal Worker Visa, which allows up to 6 months of UK work in edible and ornamental horticulture, with a separate poultry route running from 2 October to 31 December. The 2026 quota is 42,900 places, made up of 41,000 in horticulture and 1,900 in poultry, down from 45,000 in 2025. Pay must be at least £12.71 an hour with a guaranteed minimum of 32 paid hours a week, and the sponsor must be a licensed scheme operator such as Concordia, Pro-Force or Fruitful Jobs. The application fee is £340 with no Immigration Health Surcharge, since visas of 6 months or less are exempt. The visa cannot be extended or switched to a long-term work route, workers typically pay their own travel, and accommodation deductions are capped at £11.10 a day.