Welsh Teacher Sick Pay Explained

Search for Welsh teacher sick pay and you mostly find pages written for England that never mention Wales, or pages that assume devolution must have produced a separate Welsh scale simply because it produced one for everything else. This guide checked the Burgundy Book and the devolution instruments directly.

Does Wales have its own sick pay scale?

No. Every element of the scheme that applies to a teacher in a Welsh maintained school — the sliding scale by length of service, the four-month qualifying condition, the sick leave year, the treatment of Statutory Sick Pay, the injury-at-work ring-fence, the closure-period rules — is drawn from Section 4 of the same Burgundy Book that applies in England. There is no separate Welsh sick pay document and no separate Welsh sliding scale.

That is worth showing rather than asserting. The 2023 revised Burgundy Book is titled, on its cover, the Conditions of Service for School Teachers in England and Wales. Its list of parties includes the Local Government Association and the Welsh Local Government Association, alongside the five teacher associations and the National Employers' Organisation for School Teachers. It was published in June 2023 — nearly five years after teachers' pay and conditions of employment were devolved to the Welsh Ministers on 30 September 2018 — and its drafters, with full knowledge of that devolution, chose to keep one sick pay scheme rather than write two.

Why one document covers two nations

The 2018 devolution and the Burgundy Book were never touching the same thing, so there was nothing for devolution to split.

The sliding scale, in full

Section 4, paragraph 2.1 sets out the scale exactly as it applies in England. Where the appropriate conditions are met, a teacher absent through illness — including injury or other disability — is entitled, in any one year, to:

The condition most often reported wrongly is identical on both sides of the border: the four-month qualifying period attaches only to the half-pay element in year one. The 25 days of full pay are available from day one. An NQT — Wales still uses that term, not ECT — who starts in September and falls seriously ill in October has their 25 full-pay days immediately, but will not reach the four-month mark that unlocks half pay until January.

Our England sick pay guide works through this table paragraph by paragraph — service portability, the exact definition of a working day, the sick leave year's boundary rules, deductions against benefits, and what happens when entitlement runs out. None of that detail differs for a Welsh teacher, so the sections below summarise it and point there for the full treatment rather than repeat it twice.

Service, and what counts as a working day

"Service" is defined, under the table in paragraph 2.1, as all aggregated teaching service with one or more local authority — your place on the scale travels between Welsh maintained schools rather than resetting. "Working days" is defined in paragraph 2.3 as teaching and non-teaching days within directed time, "as specified within the STPCD/STPC(W)D" — the one definition that formally routes through each nation's own pay document.

It is worth confirming what that routing actually produces. The STPC(W)D caps a full-time classroom teacher's directed time at 1,265 hours across 195 days, of which up to 190 are teaching days — the same figures used in England's STPCD. Even the one definition that formally depends on the separate national pay documents currently gives an identical result.

The sick leave year: 1 April to 31 March

Paragraph 4.1's rules apply without amendment in Wales: the year runs 1 April to 31 March, not the academic year or your anniversary; starting after 1 April gives the full year's entitlement, not a pro-rated share; being on sick leave on 31 March does not trigger a fresh allowance until you actually return to duty; and a new employer must count sick pay a previous employer already paid within the same sick leave year. Our England guide works through each rule with an example — the mechanics are identical for a move between Welsh maintained schools.

SSP and occupational sick pay

Statutory Sick Pay is absorbed into occupational sick pay rather than paid alongside it — paragraph 3.1 says sick pay "shall include, where appropriate, Statutory Sick Pay" and shall not exceed ordinary contractual pay — and that reads the same in Wales because it is the same clause. SSP itself is UK-wide social security law, not devolved, so the reforms that commenced on 6 April 2026 under the Employment Rights Act 2025 apply to a Welsh teacher exactly as to an English one.

For the full mechanics — the earnings calculation, form SSP1 and New Style ESA — see the SSP section of our England sick pay guide; it transfers to Wales without adjustment, because it describes a UK-wide statute rather than anything devolved.

Injury or assault at work

Paragraph 9's ring-fenced full-pay protection for injury or assault "arising out of and in the course of" employment applies identically in Wales: up to six calendar months' full pay, and paragraph 9.3 keeps that absence from being reckoned against the teacher's ordinary sliding-scale entitlement at all. A Welsh teacher assaulted by a pupil does not spend down their normal 100 full-pay days while recovering. The parallel protection for infectious disease and tuberculosis, in paragraph 10, is equally unamended. Neither provision has ever distinguished between the two nations.

The one genuine Welsh difference

There is exactly one point of genuine divergence, and it sits outside the sick pay scheme itself: what happens when an employer moves to suspend or terminate a teacher on medical grounds, rather than simply running the ordinary entitlement.

Section 3, paragraph 5.1 states the position for both nations side by side. In England, the Education (Health Standards) (England) Regulations 2003 govern screening and the powers to suspend or terminate on medical grounds. The same paragraph then says: "For Wales, the provisions of The Education (Health Standards) (Wales) Regulations 2004 apply." A footnote adds that both must be applied in the context of Part 5 of the Equality Act 2010, where the duty to make reasonable adjustments sits.

No academies in Wales: why this matters here

England's sick pay position carries a large caveat that does not exist in Wales. Because the Burgundy Book is a voluntary agreement rather than legislation, it does not automatically bind academy trusts — it applies only where incorporated into individual contracts, which happens in most cases but is not guaranteed. Roughly half of English schools, and most secondaries, are academies, so a meaningful share of English teachers must check their own contract rather than assume the scale applies.

Wales has no academies. Every state school is maintained, bound by the STPC(W)D for pay, and in practice incorporates Burgundy Book conditions for sick pay. Incorporation is still not automatic as a matter of law — Section 1 uses the same "will generally have been incorporated" wording for voluntary aided and foundation schools that England's guide caveats — but the absence of an academy sector removes the largest source of uncertainty an English teacher has to navigate.

Notification, Fit Notes and closures

The administrative rules around the scale are, again, the same clauses applied to both nations: notification by the fourth working day of absence and a Fit Note by the eighth (paragraph 8.1); a frozen rate of pay through school closures that does not count against the sliding scale (paragraph 7.1–7.2); and early restoration of full pay for a teacher who recovers during a closure, gets a fitness certificate, and returns on the first day of term (paragraph 7.4).

• Notify your employer by the fourth working day of absence, and supply a Fit Note by the eighth day — paragraph 8.1.
• Holidays do not erode your entitlement. A closure freezes your rate of pay and is not counted against your sliding-scale days — paragraph 7.1–7.2.
• Recovering during a holiday can restore full pay early with a doctor's fitness certificate and a return on the first day of term — paragraph 7.4.
• A new Welsh employer must count sick pay your old one already paid in the same sick leave year — paragraph 4.1.

Each mechanic is covered in full, with the exact wording quoted, in our England sick pay guide — the same Section 4 of the same document, with nothing Wales-specific to add beyond confirming it applies without amendment.

Who the scheme does not cover

Section 2, paragraph 1.1 excludes two groups, identically in Wales. Teachers employed on a day-to-day or short-notice basis — paid at a daily or hourly rate under the STPCD or STPC(W)D — fall outside Section 4 entirely and are left with Statutory Sick Pay alone. Teachers on a fixed-term contract of more than one term, including maternity or long-term absence cover, are covered by the scheme in the ordinary way. The distinction between daily-rate supply work and a longer fixed-term post is exactly as consequential in Cardiff as in Leeds.

What this means in practice

If you teach in a Welsh maintained school, treat the sliding scale, the four-month rule, the sick leave year and the injury-at-work protection exactly as described for England, because they are the same clauses. What is worth doing specifically because you are in Wales is confirming your contract has actually incorporated Burgundy Book conditions — a reasonable assumption with no academy sector, but still worth checking — and, if a medical-grounds process is ever raised, making sure it runs against the 2004 Welsh Regulations rather than the 2003 English ones.

• Confirm Burgundy Book incorporation. Ask HR or check the staff handbook — routine in Wales, but not automatic as a matter of law.
• Use the England guide for paragraph-level detail. Every provision quoted there applies to you without change.
• Know which Health Standards Regulations apply to you. The 2004 Welsh Regulations, not the 2003 English ones.
• Contact your union before a payment changes. Corrections are easier before money moves than after.

Sources, and how to check this yourself

Every claim here is checkable against the primary documents: the Burgundy Book is freely downloadable and the sick pay scheme is a six-page section, and the devolution history is set out in Welsh Government and Senedd material.

Primary sources: Conditions of Service for School Teachers in England and Wales, Revised Edition, June 2023 (the Burgundy Book) — full PDF, see Section 1 paras 1–7 for the England-and-Wales scope and WLGA signatory, Section 3 para 5.1 for the Health Standards Regulations distinction, and Section 4 for the sick pay scheme; Conditions of service for school teachers — Local Government Association; What does the devolution of teachers' pay and conditions mean for the Welsh education system? — Senedd Research; School Teachers' Pay and Conditions (Wales) Document — GOV.WALES, for the directed-time figures behind the working-days definition; A teacher's guide to directed time in Wales — NASUWT; Sick leave and sick pay entitlement for teachers (England, Wales) — NASUWT; The Employment Rights Act 2025 (Commencement No. 3 and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2026, SI 2026/373, for the UK-wide April 2026 SSP reforms.

Where this guide is uncertain: we found no published record of how often the Health Standards (Wales) Regulations 2004 process is actually used, or how that compares with England. On the core question — whether the sick pay scale itself differs — the primary source is unambiguous and is quoted above rather than inferred.