Employment and Benefits Advice

Are you currently claiming a benefit and want to ensure that everything is in order? Or perhaps you're not receiving any benefits and want to check if you can? Our new service aims to check your eligibility and make sure you're getting the support you are entitled to.

Why Check Your Claim?

It's not uncommon for individuals to overlook potential benefits they may be entitled to, or for existing claims to have errors. Here's how we can help:

Benefit Review If you're currently receiving benefits, we can review your claim to ensure that everything is in order.
Eligibility Assessment For those who are not currently claiming any benefits, we can assess your eligibility. One option we can explore is whether you would be better off making the switch to Universal Credit if you’ve been claiming something else.

Who Can Claim?

You may be eligible for benefits if you are a UK Home Student and you are:

Responsible for a child;
Studying part-time;
Living with a partner who is not a student and is eligible for Universal Credit.

Have you received support from us?

We want to hear from you about your experience with university support during the Cost of Living crisis. The Students' Union is eager to know how things have been for you, and your feedback will be passed on to the University to make sure they understand what support you need.
Share your thoughts and experiences with us by completing our Cost of Living Feedback questionnaire. Let us know how the support provided has been for you and how the Cost of Living crisis has affected your university life. We still want to hear your experiences event if you didn’t receive support via a bursary in Trimester 1.

If you think you may be entitled to a benefit and would like to an adviser to do an eligibility check, you can complete a referral form using the following link: Advice Centre Referral
Make clear on the form it’s about a benefit claim so we can get you to the right person.

Student receiving benefit advice case study

This year, the most common source for students getting money is through part time work, with 62% of students having a job whilst studying according to the National Student Money survey.

Many students have jobs within hospitality and retail sectors where you can experience long hours and low pay. But we want to make sure that you understand your rights, so you are being treated fairly and not being exploited!

We have created a guide to help you understand your employment rights, including fair pay, working hours and protection against unlawful discrimination.

By raising awareness of employment, should you think you aren’t being treated fairly, we hope this guide can empower you to advocate for yourself.

This guide's information is correct for employees and accurate at the time of publication. For changes in legislation and to see how different employment status different rights have, check out the GOV.UK website.

Every UK employee is entitled to:

National Minimum Wage or National Living Wage
Right to work no more than 48 hours a week on average
Minimum statutory notice period
A payslip
Protection against unfair dismissal
Protection against unlawful discrimination
Statutory minimum length of rest breaks
Statutory minimum of 5.6 weeks paid annual leave
Statutory sick pay if you are too ill to work

National Minimum Wage or National Living Wage:

Legally, your employer is required to pay you a minimum amount on average for the hours you work. This is called:

National Living Wage if you aged 23 or over
National Minimum Wage if you are aged under 23 or an apprentice

Wage band	Current rate (from 1 April 2023)
Age 23 or over (National Living Wage)	£10.42
Age 21 to 22	£10.18
Age 18 to 20	£7.49
Under 18	£5.28
Apprentice	£5.28

You can find more about national minimum wage entitlement on the Acas website.

Right to work no more than 48 hours:

Your employer isn’t allowed to make you work more than 28 hours per week on average.

If you would like to work more than 48 hours per week, you can sign an agreement to opt out of the minimum weekly time limit, but this is your decision – employers can’t force you or pressure to you to opt out.

There are some professions that are not covered by the 48 working week limit. Check on the Citizens Advice Website to see if this applies to you.

Minimum Statutory Notice Period:

Your employer isn’t allowed to just sack you or dismiss you from work without notice. If you have worked for your employer for at least 1 month you are entitled to as least one weeks’ notice.

Some employers may give you more than the statutory minimum, so make sure to check your contract.

Pay slips:

Under the Employment Act 1996, by law, Employers must give all employees and workers their payslips.

Your payslip must include:

Total pay before deductions
Total pay after deductions
Variable deductions – National Insurance, Student Loan repayments and pension schemes
Fixed deductions – union subscriptions
Breakdown of wages

Payslip must also have the:

Time period the pay covers
Tax code of the employee or worker

You can find out more on Acas' article on payslips.

Protection against unfair dismissal:

If you have worked for your employer for over 2 years, you are legally protected against unfair dismissal.

It might be an unfair dismissal if:

There was no fair reason for the dismissal
The reason was not enough to justify dismissing them
The employer did not follow a fair procedure

You can find out more on Acas' article on unfair dismissal.

Protection against unlawful discrimination:

You might be treated unfairly because of one or more ‘protected characteristics'. You can take action if you think you have been treated unfairly.

The protected characteristics are:

Age
Disability
Gender Reassignment
Marriage and Civil partnership
Pregnancy and maternity
Race
Religion or belief
Sex
Sexual orientation

Find out more on the Citizens Advice 'Dealing with discrimination at work' article.

Statutory minimum length of rest breaks:

Workers aged 18 and over are usually entitled to 3 types of rest breaks. These include breaks at work, daily and weekly rest.

Rest breaks at work – workers have the right to one uninterrupted 20-minute break if they work over 6 hours.
Daily rest – workers have the right to 11 hours rest between breaks.
Weekly rest – workers have the right to uninterrupted 24 hours without any work each week or 48 hours uninterrupted rest without work each fortnight

Find out more on the GOV.UK's 'Rest breaks at work' article.

Statutory minimum 5.6 weeks paid annual leave pro rata:

The amount of holiday or annual leave you are entitled to will depend on how many days/hours you work and any extra agreements you have with your employer.

If you work part time, this means you are still entitled to 5.6 weeks (28 days) paid annual leave just in proportion to the hours your work.

Check out how much holiday you should get with the GOV.UK holiday calculator.

Statutory sick pay if you are too ill to work:

If you meet the eligibility criteria your employer must pay you Statutory Sick Pay (SSP). SSP is £109.40 per week and be paid for up to 28 weeks.

Check to see if you are entitled to SSP on the ACAS website.

We encourage all students to familiarize themselves with their rights as employees, and to seek support and guidance if they experience any violations.

To find more help and information you can contact:

Trade Union: If you're a member of a trade union, you should contact them to see if they can help with your problem at work, before trying to find help elsewhere. You can find out more about your rights at work and as a member of a union, and how to contact your union on the TUC website.
ACAS: Acas provides free and impartial information and advice on all aspects of workplace relations and employment law. You can find advice on the Acas website.
Citizens Advice: Talk to an adviser for help with your employment problem or employment tribunal claim on the Citizens Advice website.