The UK Just Published the Names of Employers That Underpaid Their Staff

The BBC reported on September 3 that the DIY retailer B&Q and the fast food chain Five Guys are among 658 UK businesses named by the government for paying staff below the minimum wage. More than 600 employers were ordered to repay affected workers, £4m was returned, and penalties worth £7m were issued, according to the Department for Business and Trade. At Metaintro, we cover enforcement lists like this because the causes are mechanical rather than dramatic, which means the same thing may be happening in your payslip. Here is what was found, why it happens, and how to check.

What Did the Government Actually Publish?

A list of 658 named businesses, covering shops, restaurants, nurseries, social care providers and a handful of NHS trusts. The scale of the enforcement is worth stating in full: more than 600 employers ordered to pay outstanding wages, £4m returned to workers, and £7m in penalties on top of the repayments. The penalties are larger than the wages recovered, which is deliberate, since a scheme where the only consequence is repaying what you owed would create no incentive to get it right.

The period covered varies by employer and stretches from 2013 to 2025. That range tells you something important about how these cases surface. Underpayment is frequently discovered years after it happens, usually through an investigation by HM Revenue and Customs rather than through a complaint from the worker. If you left one of these employers in 2019, you may be owed money you have never thought about.

Two individual entries give a sense of the shape. B&Q underpaid 4,530 workers a total of more than £456,000. Five Guys was named as owing over £54,000 to 3,699 staff. Note the difference in the per-worker amounts. The B&Q figure averages around £100 per person and the Five Guys figure closer to £15, which is characteristic of systematic payroll errors rather than deliberate withholding, and it is exactly why nobody spotted it from a single payslip.

Why Do Big Employers Underpay Without Meaning To?

Because minimum wage compliance is an arithmetic problem, not a policy one, and the arithmetic has more moving parts than most people realise. B&Q said the shortfalls were unintentional and related to calculations involving geographical allowances paid in addition to minimum hourly rates, and that all affected colleagues were paid in full in July 2025. Five Guys attributed its underpayments to technical differences in how payroll regulations were applied, identified during an HMRC review, and said it worked transparently with HMRC and has made all required payments.

The mechanism that catches employers out most often is that minimum wage is assessed on what you actually receive for the hours you actually work, not on your headline hourly rate. Anything that reduces pay or increases unpaid hours can pull an above-minimum rate below the line. Deductions for uniforms or equipment, time spent on security checks or handover before and after a shift, travel between assignments and unpaid training all count.

Salary sacrifice is the version that surprises people most, and the list contains a live example. The Epsom and St Helier Hospital Group failed to pay over £123,000 to 75 workers, and the BBC understands this resulted from salary sacrifice schemes that have since been changed. Salary sacrifice reduces gross pay in exchange for a benefit such as pension contributions or a vehicle, and if that reduction takes an employee below the minimum wage for their hours, the employer has broken the law even though the worker agreed to the arrangement and may have benefited from it.

What Are the Current UK Rates?

Three tiers, and knowing which one applies to you is the first step in checking anything. The minimum wage is £12.71 for staff aged 21 and over. For 18 to 20 year olds the rate is £10.85. For under 18s and apprentices it is £8. The full and current rates are published on GOV.UK.

The apprentice rate is the one most commonly misapplied, because it only applies in specific circumstances rather than to anyone with the word apprentice in their job title. Getting that wrong is a frequent cause of underpayment, and it disproportionately affects young workers who are least likely to challenge it.

Age transitions are the other recurring trap. When a worker has a birthday that moves them into a higher band, the employer must uprate their pay from the start of the next pay reference period. Payroll systems that do not track birthdays automatically produce exactly the kind of small, systematic shortfall that appears on this list years later.

How Do You Check Whether You Are Being Underpaid?

Work out your real hourly rate rather than your stated one. Take your total pay for a pay period before tax but after any deductions that count against minimum wage, then divide by every hour you actually worked, including time you may not be recording. That last part is where most shortfalls hide.

Count the hours people routinely forget. Time spent waiting for or undergoing security checks, opening or closing procedures before and after a paid shift, mandatory training, handover periods, and travel between work sites during a shift are generally working time. If you regularly arrive fifteen minutes early because the shift cannot start without it, that is roughly an hour a week that may not be in your pay calculation.

Then check the deductions. Money taken for uniforms, tools, equipment or safety clothing you are required to have generally reduces your pay for minimum wage purposes, as do some accommodation charges. If you are in a salary sacrifice arrangement, check that what remains still clears the minimum for your hours. Knowing the difference between gross and net pay tells you which figure to start from, and converting an hourly rate to an annual one properly matters if your pay is quoted annually while your hours vary.

What Should You Do If the Numbers Do Not Add Up?

Start with your own records rather than an accusation. Keep a log of actual start and finish times for a few pay periods, including the unpaid margins, and put it beside your payslips. A specific discrepancy with dates attached gets a serious response from a payroll department. A general feeling that something is wrong does not.

Raise it internally first, in writing, with your line manager or HR. A large share of these cases are genuine errors, and employers who discover a systematic payroll problem usually fix it and backpay rather than fight it, as both B&Q and Five Guys did. Putting it in writing also creates a record and a date, which matters if the issue is not resolved.

If that does not work, the enforcement route exists and it is free. HMRC investigates minimum wage complaints and can order repayment and issue penalties, which is how most of the 658 employers on this list were identified. Acas provides free, impartial advice on pay disputes before you get that far. You do not need to still work for the employer to make a complaint, and the periods covered on this list going back to 2013 show that historic underpayment is recoverable.

How Does This Compare With Enforcement Elsewhere?

The UK approach is unusual in publishing names, and comparing it with the US shows two different theories of deterrence. In the United States, the Department of Labor recovers unpaid wages through its Wage and Hour Division, which investigates individual employers and announces recoveries case by case rather than in an annual list. On September 3, the same day the UK list was published, the division announced it had recovered $732,976 for 31 restaurant workers in Florida from an employer that paid monthly salaries while staff routinely worked more than 40 hours a week.

The contrast is instructive. The US case involved 31 workers and recovered more than $23,000 each, which is the profile of deliberate and sustained underpayment at a single small employer. The UK list involved 658 employers and averaged a few pounds per worker in many cases, which is the profile of systematic payroll error across an entire economy. Both are illegal and both get repaid, but a worker looking for their own situation on one of these lists should understand that the second type is far more common and far less visible.

The practical takeaway for workers in either country is that enforcement agencies act without you needing to sue. The US division operates a free helpline and a search tool for recovered back wages that workers can check against their own names, and the UK route runs through HMRC at no cost to the worker. Neither requires a lawyer, and neither requires you to still work for the employer.

Does Naming Employers Actually Change Anything?

Partly, and the mechanism is reputational rather than financial. For a company the size of B&Q, £456,000 in repayments and a share of £7m in penalties is not a material financial event. Being listed by the government alongside 657 other employers is a different kind of cost, particularly for consumer-facing brands that recruit heavily from the same population they sell to.

The more useful effect is on payroll practice across the sector. A named employer typically audits its whole payroll rather than fixing the single error found, and competitors reading the list tend to do the same. That is why the causes disclosed here matter more than the names. Geographical allowances, salary sacrifice interactions and payroll interpretation are now flagged issues that other employers can check for proactively.

For workers, the value of the list is precedent. It establishes that underpayment at large, reputable employers is common rather than exceptional, that it usually results from process rather than malice, and that it gets repaid when found. All three of those facts make it considerably easier to raise a query about your own pay without feeling you are accusing anyone of anything.

Which Workers Are Most Exposed to This?

The ones with variable hours, multiple locations or deductions, which maps closely onto the sectors on the list. Retail, hospitality, nurseries and social care all combine shift patterns that change week to week with unpaid margins around shifts and, frequently, required uniforms or equipment. That combination is where small systematic errors accumulate.

Younger workers are structurally more exposed for two reasons. They are more likely to be on the lower age bands or the apprentice rate, where misapplication is most common, and they are least likely to challenge a payslip. The presence of nurseries and hospitality operators on this list is not a coincidence, and neither is the fact that the underpayments were caught by an investigation rather than a complaint.

Anyone working across multiple sites in a single shift should pay particular attention. Travel between assignments during the working day is generally working time, and it is one of the most frequently unpaid categories in care work in particular. If you visit four clients in a day and are paid only for the time inside each home, your effective hourly rate for the shift may be well below the legal minimum even though your stated rate is above it. Understanding when you are legally owed overtime is the companion question, because the two are frequently wrong together.

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People Also Asked

Q: How do I know if I am being paid below the minimum wage?

A: Divide your total pay for a period, after any deductions that count against the minimum, by every hour you actually worked including unpaid margins such as security checks, handovers, mandatory training and travel between sites during a shift. Compare that figure to your age band. The current UK rates are £12.71 for those aged 21 and over, £10.85 for 18 to 20 year olds, and £8 for under 18s and apprentices.

Q: Can salary sacrifice make my pay illegal?

A: It can, and one NHS trust on this list underpaid workers for exactly that reason. Salary sacrifice reduces your gross pay in exchange for a benefit, and if that reduction takes your effective hourly pay below the minimum for the hours you worked, the employer is in breach even though you agreed to the arrangement. Employers are expected to check this and adjust the scheme rather than rely on your consent.

Q: What if I already left the employer?

A: You can still make a complaint and still be repaid. The underpayments on this list span 2013 to 2025, and more than 600 employers were ordered to repay affected workers including former staff. HMRC investigates minimum wage complaints without charge, and Acas can advise on the process before you begin.

Underpayment at large employers is usually a payroll error rather than a scandal, which is exactly why it goes unnoticed for years unless someone checks. Metaintro tracks pay, hours and rights across retail, hospitality and care work so you can see what a role should actually pay before you take it. Join free to compare openings on real terms.