M&S and Tesco Offer Six Weeks' Paid Paternity Leave as UK Lags

Marks & Spencer and Tesco now give new fathers six weeks of fully paid paternity leave — triple the UK statutory minimum of two weeks — putting retail at the front of a sector-by-sector split in parental benefits.

New research from campaign group The Dad Shift and Ian Dinwiddy of Inspiring Dads shows the two retailers rank among the most generous FTSE 100 companies on paternity leave. Privately owned Ikea, Lego and Virgin Media O2 also now exceed the statutory offer with additional fully paid weeks for new fathers.

M&S raised its entitlement from two weeks to six weeks at full pay in 2024. Employee Joe Erskine used the policy when his second child was born 17 months ago. "Being able to take six weeks' paid paternity leave, flexibly, made a huge difference to me and my family, giving me the time to support my partner and settle into being a new parent," Erskine said.

What does this change for workers?

The arithmetic is straightforward. Enhanced packages from just five employers — including Asda, Waitrose and Lidl, which upgraded their offers in recent years — cover nearly 650,000 workers. That's a meaningful chunk of the UK workforce getting six weeks at full pay instead of the statutory floor.

For everyone else, the baseline is thin. Statutory paternity leave pays £194.32 a week, or 90% of average weekly earnings, whichever is lower — less than half the national living wage. For a father earning median wages, taking the full two weeks at statutory rates means a significant pay cut at exactly the moment household costs rise.

Why retail is pulling away from construction

The gap between sectors is widening, according to The Dad Shift's analysis. Construction employs roughly one in 10 working men but accounts for only about one in 15 recipients of statutory paternity pay. Part of the explanation is structural: many construction workers are self-employed and have no entitlement to paid paternity leave at all. The same applies to most of Britain's agricultural workers.

The numbers at male-dominated industrial employers are telling. JCB, the construction equipment maker, offers two weeks at full pay — up from three days previously. Rolls-Royce, whose workforce is more than 80% male, also offers just two weeks of fully paid leave, despite making jet engines, ship turbines and small nuclear power plants.

The political pressure building behind the numbers

More than 100 Labour MPs have written in recent weeks to Andy Burnham demanding improvements to UK paternity leave in the upcoming budget. Their pitch: six weeks of paternity leave paid at 90% of earnings, capped at £1,200 a week, with the offer extended to self-employed fathers. They warn that the lowest-paid fathers are hit hardest by the current system.

Campaigners frame the UK as an outlier. The country ranks 40th out of 43 OECD nations on paternity leave generosity and, they argue, now has the least generous entitlement in Europe — more than two decades after paternity leave rights were first introduced in Britain.

Retailers and the shop workers' union Usdaw held a roundtable in parliament, hosted by Labour MP Connor Rand, to discuss how parental leave changes have transformed working parents' lives. Rand, a former Usdaw researcher elected in 2024, said the entitlement was crucial for his own family. "Through the ups and downs, I could bond with my son and support my partner because of paternity leave. Too many dads in our country can't do this. That's bad for them, bad for their partner and bad for their children. It must change," Rand said.

An 18-month government review of the UK's parental leave system is expected to report later this year. If the MPs' proposal lands in the budget, the six-week retail standard — currently a competitive perk at M&S and Tesco — could become the legal minimum for every employed father, self-employed included. Until then, where you work determines how much of your child's first weeks you can afford to see.