The Fair Work Agency's first naming round, published on 3 September 2026, placed 658 employers on a public register for underpaying more than 27,000 workers a combined £4 million, with £7 million in penalties issued alongside. The register spans household retail names, NHS trusts, a top-50 law firm and franchised food operators, and the employer statements accompanying nearly every entry share a common thread: the breach was unintentional. For HR and reward leaders, that is precisely the point worth examining.

This is the 24th naming round since the scheme launched in 2011, and the first published by the Fair Work Agency, which launched on 7 April 2026 under the Employment Rights Act and has consolidated minimum wage enforcement, employment agency standards and labour provider licensing under a single body. HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) continues to carry out operational enforcement on the Agency's behalf. Since 2011, the cumulative impact of the naming scheme has reached more than £100 million in penalties issued to over 5,200 employers, with over £66 million returned to 650,000 workers. The architecture around enforcement has now fundamentally changed.

What the 658 employers actually got wrong

The named list covers underpayments recorded between 2013 and 2025, with an average shortfall of £154 per worker but a range running from £8 to £23,871. B&Q Limited topped the list at £456,934.72 owed to 4,530 workers. Elysium Healthcare Holdings 3 Limited followed at £330,048.81 across 1,095 workers, and Five Guys JV Limited owed £54,642.47 to 3,699 workers. Public-sector organisations appear prominently: St George's, Epsom and St Helier Hospital Group owed £123,331.97 to 75 workers, and St Albans District Council owed £5,029.26 to 230 workers. Serco Limited (£36,303.02 to 374 workers), G4S Facilities Management (UK) Limited (£31,158.47 to 479 workers), Whitbread Group PLC (£4,193.39 to 342 workers) and Leeds United Football Club Limited (£10,253.06 to 345 workers) also feature.

The Fair Work Agency has broken down the causes, and the distribution is more instructive than any individual company name:

• Deductions reducing pay below the minimum, affecting 39% of employers named, covering salary sacrifice, childcare arrangements, uniform costs and dress-code requirements.
• Unpaid working time, affecting 33%, including work before or after shifts, rounding of clock-in times, handover meetings and unpaid travel.
• Failure to uplift pay, affecting 16%, when a worker moved into a higher age band or when the 1 April rate increase was not applied on the correct pay reference period.

None of these categories require an employer to be paying below the headline hourly rate. In several cases, gross salaries sat comfortably above the National Living Wage. The breach arose from what happened after gross pay was calculated: the mechanics of deductions, time-capture and age-band management, not headline rates.

The salary-sacrifice trap

St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is a precise illustration of how a benefits scheme can generate a compliance breach. A trust spokesman described the issue as a technical compliance point where part of an employee's salary sacrificed for a non-tax-deductible benefit, such as childcare, was not counted towards the National Minimum Wage, even though gross salary sat above the threshold. The mechanism is straightforward: HMRC's calculation methodology treats the post-sacrifice figure as pay for minimum wage purposes, so a childcare voucher or cycle-to-work deduction can push a worker below the statutory line even when the underlying total package is competitive.

This risk sits inside almost every benefits programme built on pre-tax deductions. Where any segment of the workforce sits close to minimum wage, salary sacrifice can convert what is designed as a competitive benefit into a statutory breach under the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 without payroll or HR teams detecting it during routine processing. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has consistently flagged in its annual Reward Management Survey that salary sacrifice uptake is highest in organisations with broad pay distributions, which is precisely where low-paid-tail risk concentrates. For reward committees reviewing total-cost-of-employment models, the CIPD data provides a useful benchmark for identifying which populations are most exposed.

Uniforms, car parks and the cost of being at work

Two cases on the list make the uniform issue concrete. Bents Garden Centre Limited underpaid £4,997.58 to 272 workers because it required staff to wear black trousers of their own choice. A spokesman for Bents acknowledged the business had mistakenly breached the guidance. A Bradford-based nursery operator, Creative Child Ltd, made a comparable point: the business had not realised that specifying the colour of workwear affected the wage calculation.

The applicable rule is that any expense a worker incurs as a direct result of a job requirement, whether that is purchasing specific clothing or paying to park at the workplace, must be offset against pay when calculating compliance with the National Minimum Wage Act 1998. Taylor Rose, a top-50 UK law firm, was named for failing to pay almost £9,000 to 63 employees. A Taylor Rose spokesperson stated the firm has since enhanced its payroll checking procedures to align with HMRC's preferred calculation methodology, removed the car parking deduction that contributed to the issue and increased pay levels for lower-paid employees. The case carries a clear signal for professional services firms that have historically assumed minimum wage risk is a retail and hospitality problem.

Unpaid working time: the shift edges that catch employers

Norfolk Community Health & Care NHS Trust failed to pay £19,948.21 to 105 workers because apprentices were inadvertently underpaid between 2019 and 2023, when meetings, handovers and time spent changing into uniform were not counted as working time. B&Q attributed its underpayment to calculations involving geographical allowances paid in addition to minimum hourly rates, and confirmed that all affected colleagues were paid in full in July 2025.

The pattern concentrates in shift-based operations: retail, healthcare, hospitality, care homes and franchised food service. Two McDonald's franchisees, McLean Restaurants Limited and Loizou Restaurants Limited, were named for owing £18,307.02 to 515 workers and £11,074.88 to 282 workers respectively. Across Scotland, 50 firms appeared on the list affecting nearly 700 workers, with Collin Care Ltd of Glasgow the largest Scottish underpayer at £28,149.20 across 77 workers. Northern Ireland contributed 36 employers underpaying £147,393.21 to 853 workers, led by Peninsula Care Services (NI) Ltd at £42,013.29 across 125 workers.

For the North East, 33 employers underpaid 804 workers a total of £139,567, an average of £173 each, across periods between 2018 and 2025. The geographic spread confirms that the compliance failure is not confined to a single sector or region.

The enforcement context is escalating

The Fair Work Agency launched on 7 April 2026 under the Employment Rights Act, which received royal assent in December 2025. HMRC continues to enforce the minimum wage operationally on behalf of the Agency. From 2027, the Fair Work Agency's remit expands to include enforcement of statutory holiday pay, which brings a further layer of payroll practice into direct regulatory scope.

Matthew Taylor, Chair of the Fair Work Agency Advisory Board, described the round as an important reminder that paying the minimum wage is not optional, and stated that those who fall short should expect robust enforcement to protect workers and maintain a fair playing field for responsible businesses. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds stated that short-changing staff is not a shortcut to success and that the government is determined to stamp it out. Kate Dearden, Minister for the Future of Work, said every employer should check their payroll now and reach out to ACAS (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) if further support is needed.

A previous list published in March 2026 named almost 400 employers who had underpaid approximately 60,000 workers by more than £7.3 million. Two naming rounds within six months, with the cadence accelerating under a new enforcement body whose remit is set to grow, represents a material shift in the operating environment for HR and reward functions.

What HR should audit this quarter

Catrin Mills, employment partner at Sharpe Pritchard, set out the compliance position plainly: the key message is that compliance is not simply about setting hourly pay rates above the statutory minimum. She noted that employers should regularly audit payroll practices, deductions, salary sacrifice arrangements, allowances, training time and working time records to ensure workers' pay does not inadvertently fall below National Minimum Wage thresholds, because even technical breaches can result in financial penalties, reputational damage and public naming.

The pattern across the 658 named employers points to seven checks worth running against your organisation's payroll before the next naming round:

• Salary sacrifice populations: identify every worker on childcare vouchers, cycle-to-work, pension additional voluntary contributions or similar pre-tax arrangements and confirm post-sacrifice pay clears the applicable National Living or Minimum Wage rate.
• Uniform and dress code costs: where the organisation requires specific clothing by colour, style or brand, the cost of acquiring it counts against wages for any worker near the threshold under the National Minimum Wage Act 1998.
• Car parking, tool and equipment deductions: any expense a worker cannot avoid because of the role counts, including workplace parking charges.
• Working time at shift edges: handovers, briefings, uniform-changing, mandatory training and clock-rounding practices; audit how these are captured and paid, particularly in shift-based operations.
• Age-band transitions: workers moving from the 18-20 rate to the 21+ rate trigger an automatic uplift under the National Minimum Wage Act 1998; confirm the payroll system flags birthdays and apprenticeship completions in real time. From April 2026, the rates are £12.71 (21+), £10.85 (18-20), £8.00 (under 18) and £8.00 (apprentice).
• 1 April rate uplifts: verify the annual increase was applied on the correct pay reference period, not only on the payslip issued after 1 April.
• Geographical and role allowances: where allowances form part of the pay stack used to meet minimum wage, the calculation methodology must match HMRC's approach rather than internal reward logic.

TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak stated that bosses who fail to pay the minimum wage deserve to be named and shamed, and framed the Fair Work Agency as a genuine opportunity to act firmly against rogue employers. The reputational dimension warrants specific attention from HR leadership: appearing on a naming list surfaces on employer review platforms, in candidate research and in press coverage long after arrears have been repaid. Prospective hires conducting research during interview preparation will find the story attached to the company name, with direct implications for employer brand and hiring conversion rates.

The strategic read for HR leaders

Two conclusions matter for the HR function beyond the immediate payroll audit. The first is that enforcement risk is decoupling from intent. Employer statements across the named list emphasise administrative error, historic miscalculation and technical breach. The Fair Work Agency is publishing regardless, and prime contractors listed alongside small independents carry the same line on the register. Good faith does not remove the exposure; it only shapes the remediation narrative.

The second is that benefits design and total-reward strategy now require a compliance overlay that treats every scheme touching pre-tax pay as a National Minimum Wage risk vector. Salary sacrifice was designed to redistribute value between tax buckets. Applied to a workforce with any low-paid tail, it becomes a source of statutory breach under the National Minimum Wage Act 1998. The 658 organisations on this list include entities with sophisticated HR functions and outsourced payroll providers, and neither combination prevented the outcome.

The CIPD's guidance on reward governance, alongside ACAS's advisory resources on minimum wage calculation, provides HR teams with the reference frameworks to begin a structured review. The naming rounds will continue: the Fair Work Agency has signalled its enforcement priorities clearly and is expanding its remit into statutory holiday pay in 2027. HR teams that treat this list as a payroll problem will address the symptoms. Those that treat it as a benefits-design and workforce-time-capture problem will reduce the underlying exposure across their wages stack before the next round is published.