Time asleep on a sleep-in does not count for the National Living Wage. Time woken to work does, and so does the whole shift if there is nowhere suitable to sleep.
In Royal Mencap Society v Tomlinson-Blake [2021] UKSC 8, decided on 19 March 2021, the Supreme Court held that care workers on a sleep-in are not doing time work for minimum wage purposes while they are asleep. The judgment puts it this way: they "are not doing time work for the purposes of the NMW if they are not awake."
The rule comes from regulation 32(2) of the National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015. Hours when a worker is available at or near the workplace count only when the worker is "awake for the purposes of working", even where they sleep there by arrangement.
Take a sleep-in from 10pm to 7am. The worker is woken at 2am and helps a resident for an hour.
GOV.UK's guidance on working hours says: "If suitable sleeping facilities are not provided then the minimum wage must be paid for the entire shift." In the example that moves the minimum pay for the night from £12.71 to £114.39.
The minimum wage test is run over each pay reference period: pay for the period divided by the hours that count in it, under regulation 7. For sleep-ins that needs a record of each time a worker is woken and how long they work, kept with the rota for the pay period.
From 1 April 2027 the rate for workers aged 21 and over rises to £13.21, so every hour woken to work costs at least that.
We run care payroll with sleep-in time split into asleep and woken hours, test each payslip against the rate, and cost sleep-ins into the hourly rates you quote to councils for supported living.
Yes. Time awake for the purposes of working counts as working time under regulation 32(2), so it is paid at least at the minimum wage for the worker's age.
£13.21 an hour for workers aged 21 and over, from 1 April 2027. The government accepted the rate on 28 October 2026.
Why unpaid travel between visits can take a carer's pay below £12.71 an hour.
Accrual at 12.07% and rolled-up holiday pay for bank and zero-hours carers.
The cost of the April 2027 rise for each full-time care worker.
We look at your last accounts, your payroll hours and your fee rates, and tell you what we would change.