Rate of record
Salary sacrifice floor calculator
Salary sacrifice does not get an NMW exemption. The post-sacrifice hourly rate must stay at or above the band floor or the employer is in breach.
Verdict
✓Above NMW floor
Post-sacrifice £12.83/hr vs band floor £12.71/hr
Post-sacrifice weekly pay £480.94.
Why this is an HMRC enforcement area
Salary sacrifice reduces gross pay before tax. NMW is tested against the post-sacrifice figure. A 5% sacrifice on a worker on the NLW floor pushes effective pay below NMW immediately. Employers regularly cap NMW workers out of voluntary sacrifice schemes for this reason. The penalty for breach is 200% of the arrears, capped at £20,000 per worker.
No pension exemption
A common myth: pension sacrifice gets a NMW carve-out. It does not. Auto-enrolment is fine because employee pension contributions deducted from net pay are not a NMW reduction, but a sacrifice rearrangement of gross pay is.