Per-task pay set by software and the UK minimum wage

More work is paid per task: per parcel delivered, per item labelled, per ticket closed, per minute of data checked. Often software sets the rate, counts the output and measures the speed. In the UK, the National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015 already deal with pay per piece or per task, and they set tests that software-driven pay has to meet. This page explains them for workers and employers.

The short answer: a worker paid per task must still average at least the minimum wage for their hours, unless the employer uses the "rated output work" scheme correctly. That scheme only applies where the employer does not control the hours, and it requires a fair speed test, a written notice to the worker in advance, and pay set so that a worker working at the average speed earns 120% of the hourly rate. Records must be kept for six years.

The rates

From 1 April 2026, the national living wage rate for workers aged 21 and over is £12.71 an hour (NMW Regulations 2015, reg 4). The rate is £10.85 for workers aged 18 to 20, and £8.00 for workers under 18 and for apprentices to whom the apprenticeship rate applies (reg 4A). The right belongs to workers, which includes people working under a contract to do work personally for someone who is not their client or customer (National Minimum Wage Act 1998, s54(3)). Whether someone paid through an app is a worker depends on the facts; see AI, platforms and UK worker status. Why paying younger workers the lower age rates is not age discrimination, and its limits, is explained under age exceptions for pay, service and redundancy.

Which kind of work is it?

The Regulations sort pay into types, and the type decides which hours count (reg 17). Two matter most for per-task pay:

• Time work: paid by time, or paid by output where the worker must work for the whole of a period, such as a shift where pay depends on tasks completed but the worker must stay for the full shift (reg 30). All the hours worked count.
• Output work: paid by reference to a measure of output, such as pieces made or processed or tasks performed, and not time work (reg 36). If the output work is not rated output work, the hours actually worked count (reg 37).

So if an app sets a shift and pays per drop or per task, it is likely to be time work, and the worker must average at least the minimum wage across all hours of the shift. Training time counts as output work hours where the worker would otherwise be doing output work (reg 38).

Rated output work: the conditions

An employer may instead treat output work as "rated output work" only if all these conditions are met (reg 41):

• the contract has no minimum or maximum working hours for the output work;
• the employer does not determine or control the hours actually worked;
• the employer has worked out the average hourly output rate by a proper test or estimate under regulation 42; and
• before the pay reference period, the worker got a written notice saying they are treated as working a certain time, that a test or estimate was done, what the average hourly output rate is, the rate per piece or task, and the government pay and work rights helpline number.

The test must be done on all the workers doing that work, or a sample representative of their speed, in similar physical conditions, with total output per hour divided by the number of workers tested. An estimate needs a representative test on reasonably similar work, adjusted for differences (reg 42). Where all of this is met, the worker is treated as working 120% of the hours that a worker working at the average rate would have taken to produce the same output (reg 43). In plain terms, pay per task must be set so that an average speed worker earns at least 1.2 times the minimum wage.

Where AI and software fit

• Speed data: systems that track speed can provide the data for the regulation 42 test, but the test still has to be representative of the workers doing the work and the conditions. A rate set from the fastest workers, or from targets a model predicts, does not meet it.
• Control of hours: if an app decides when someone works, assigns shifts or logs them off, the employer is likely to be determining or controlling hours, and rated output work will not apply.
• Changing rates: if software changes the rate per task, the notice must still be given before the pay reference period, with the current rate.
• Records: employers must keep records sufficient to show they pay at least the minimum wage, able to be produced as a single document for each pay reference period, plus a copy of any rated output notice and the data showing how the average rate was set. These must be kept for six years (reg 59).

Seeing the records behind your pay

When pay is worked out from time-tracking or task data, the records the employer must keep are often the only way to check the calculation. A worker who believes on reasonable grounds that they are or may have been paid less than the national minimum wage can give the employer a written "production notice" and require it to produce the relevant records, then inspect, examine and copy them (National Minimum Wage Act 1998, s10). The right exists only to establish whether the worker was underpaid. The worker may bring someone with them if the notice says so.

• Time limit: the employer must produce the records within fourteen days of receiving the notice, or at a later time agreed within that period, at the place of work or another reasonable or agreed place (s10(7) to (9)).
• If the employer does not comply: the worker can complain to an employment tribunal, which must award a sum equal to 80 times the hourly minimum wage in force when the award is made (s11(2)). The complaint must be presented within six months after the fourteen days (or the agreed later day) end, with an extension where that was not reasonably practicable (s11(3) and (4)).
• Burden of proof: in civil proceedings an individual is presumed to qualify for the minimum wage unless the contrary is established, and in an unauthorised deductions claim for minimum wage arrears the worker is presumed to have been underpaid unless the employer shows otherwise (s28). Records that do not stand up therefore count against the employer.

Practical steps

• Workers: keep your own log of start and finish times and tasks completed, and divide your pay by your hours, checking them against the hours your itemised payslip must show. If it falls short, ask for the pay records and any rated output notice. For pay withheld or clawed back by software, see unauthorised deductions. See also AI and pay transparency and, for leave, holiday pay when software sets your hours.
• Employers: decide which type of work each role is before setting per-task rates in software, run and keep the regulation 42 test, give notices on time, and check pay against hours every pay period.

For algorithmic pay in the EU, see the EU Platform Work Directive. This page covers the UK. It is general information, not legal advice.