As of 13 August 2026, AI can only partly calculate Statutory Sick Pay.
This still needs a person who signs their name to it.
Can you do it?
15 minutesto a draft.
30 minutesto something you’d act on.
Cost, all in£0
Skill neededchat-fluent
Who has to check ita colleague
What the alternative costsNo alternative price is provided in the supplied tools data.
If this goes wrong, an employee can be underpaid or overpaid and your payroll records may need correction.
What to actually do
Hand it to a person
The route this page recommends
A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.
Use a tool built for this
Second choiceDo it yourself
The distant thirdA chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.
How to actually do it
- Open the current Statutory Sick Pay guidance on GOV.UK and keep it beside the chatbot.
- Gather the employee's absence dates, linked sickness periods if relevant, normal qualifying days, pay frequency, average earnings information and any contractual sick pay policy.
- Paste the gathered facts and the prompt into the chatbot, asking it to use only the current GOV.UK guidance you opened.
- Check that the chatbot has marked every missing or uncertain fact and has not filled any gap with an assumption.
- Compare each eligibility conclusion, qualifying day, waiting day, rate and arithmetic step with the current GOV.UK page and the employee's payroll record.
- Ask a payroll manager or accountant to approve the draft where eligibility, linked absences, average earnings or contractual pay is unclear.
- Enter the approved result into your payroll system and retain the source links, inputs and calculation alongside the payroll records.
Prompt
Calculate a draft Statutory Sick Pay result for a UK employee using only the information and current GOV.UK guidance I provide. Do not invent missing facts, rates, dates or eligibility conditions. First list the facts needed and mark each supplied, missing or uncertain. Then identify the relevant GOV.UK rules and link to the exact GOV.UK pages used. Show the eligibility checks, qualifying days, waiting days if applicable, earnings assessment, the statutory amount and the calculation in a clear table. Distinguish Statutory Sick Pay from contractual sick pay and do not calculate contractual pay unless I provide its written policy. If the information is incomplete or the rules are ambiguous, stop and state what a payroll professional must confirm rather than guessing. Treat the result as a draft for payroll checking, not as professional advice. Employee details: [insert relevant absence, pay and payroll facts here]. Employer payroll frequency and policy: [insert details here].
Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.
What it gets wrong
- AI cannot know whether your absence records, qualifying days and average earnings data are complete.
- AI cannot reliably resolve unusual linked sickness periods or conflicting payroll records without a payroll specialist's judgement.
- AI cannot take responsibility for correcting an underpayment, overpayment or inaccurate payroll submission.
- AI cannot replace the employer's payroll controls or approval process.
What caps this at PARTLY: legal accountability, verification cost and context depth.
How we scored this
Five axes, each scored nought to two by hand: ten means AI carries the task cleanly, and the thresholds that turn a total into YES, PARTLY or NO are published in the methodology. Each axis name links to its definition.
| Axis | Score (0–2) |
|---|---|
| Output | 2 |
| Inputs | 1 |
| Verification | 1 |
| Liability | 1 |
| Effort delta | 2 |
| Total | 7 / 10 |
The methodology and its thresholds are published in full.
FAQ
- Can ChatGPT work out Statutory Sick Pay?
- Yes, it can produce a draft calculation from complete UK payroll and absence data. Check every rule and figure against current GOV.UK guidance, and have a payroll manager or accountant approve anything unclear.
- Is AI accurate for Statutory Sick Pay?
- It can get the arithmetic right while using the wrong eligibility facts or an outdated rule. Treat the result as a draft, verify it against GOV.UK and your records, and do not rely on it for unusual cases without payroll review.
- What information does AI need to calculate Statutory Sick Pay?
- It needs the employee's sickness dates, any linked sickness periods, qualifying days, pay frequency, average earnings information and relevant contractual sick pay terms. The chatbot should flag anything missing rather than estimate it.
- Can AI calculate Statutory Sick Pay for payroll?
- It can prepare the calculation and show the working, but your employer remains responsible for the payroll result. This is not professional advice, so ask a payroll accountant or other payroll professional to check a serious or uncertain case.
Nearby answers
- Can AI add a new employee to my UK payroll?PARTLY
- Can AI apply the correct tax code to an employee?NO
- Can AI audit my UK payroll for errors?PARTLY
- Can AI automate my UK payroll?NO
- Can AI calculate employee National Insurance deductions?YES
- Can AI calculate employer National Insurance contributions?PARTLY
Assessed by gpt-5.6-luna (gpt-5.6-luna) on 2026-08-13, second-checked by an independent model. Wrong somewhere? Email [email protected] and it gets re-checked.
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