What happened during UK National Payroll Week 2026 and why it matters for your practice

National Payroll Week celebrated payroll professionals across the UK and Ireland in September 2026, with Bright hosting a series of expert webinars covering Statutory Maternity Pay, artificial intelligence adoption, and innovative payroll automation tools that are reshaping how bureaus and businesses manage payroll compliance.

This blog is part of our series on Celebrating National Payroll Week 2026: The Numbers Every Payroll Team Should Know.

What is National Payroll Week and why does it matter?

National Payroll Week is an annual recognition of the vital role payroll processors play in keeping the country running. Held each September, the week shines a spotlight on payroll and provides an opportunity for industry leaders to share knowledge on the regulations, tools, and challenges. For payroll processors, it’s a chance to stay ahead of legislative changes, discover new software capabilities, and understand emerging trends like AI adoption.

Back to Basics: Statutory Maternity Pay

Bright’s standout session was ‘National Payroll Week: Back to Basics: Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP)’ hosted by expert payroll tutor Lorna Dalglish. This session tackled one of the most complex and frequently mishandled areas of compliance for payroll processors.

Lorna’s session covered the qualifying conditions for maternity eligibility, how to establish the relevant period for average weekly earnings calculations, and when and how to apply the statutory minimum rate.

Key takeaways included:

• The importance of the 26-week continuous employment rule

• Verification of the expected week of childbirth (EWC)

• How backdated pay awards affect maternity calculations

Statutory maternity pay is calculated on the lower of 90% of average weekly earnings (for the first six weeks) or the statutory rate. Getting the relevant period wrong is a common error that costs practices time and money. To learn more about Statutory Maternity Pay, check out our blog on what is Statutory Maternity Pay in the UK and how long does it last?

How is AI being adopted in payroll practice today?

The second major session, ‘The State of AI in Payroll: How Payroll Professionals Are Using Artificial Intelligence Today’, was underpinned by a significant industry survey. The data showed that whilst 78% of payroll professionals felt satisfied in their roles, 22% still worked beyond full-time hours. On top of that, 42% reported unmanageable workloads and 53% shared that deadline pressure was a key challenge.

The webinar revealed an emerging AI tool specifically designed to help. Ask the Payroll Centre (ATPC) is an AI assistant built on decades of payroll guidance. ATPC draws from 35 internally-authored compliance manuals updated annually, so it’s been designed to handle the out-of-hours research burden that many bureaus face.

The third tool highlighted was Oscar, Bright’s AI employee onboarding assistant, which collects new starter information automatically via WhatsApp and secure links, reducing what typically takes seven days to just 1.5 hours. Early adopter feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with one practice noting how they reduced onboarding time from a week of chasing forms to just 5-10 minutes per starter. For further information on Oscar, check out our blog on Payroll Onboarding: Why It Still Takes a Week (And Why It Should Take Hours).

What other innovations were demonstrated throughout the week?

Beyond the main webinars, Bright demonstrated several tools aimed at removing manual work from payroll operations. Embedded Payments in BrightPay allow practitioners to pay employees directly from the software without exporting files or logging into separate banking portals, an innovation aimed at SMEs looking to streamline cash handling.

TimeKeeper, integrated with BrightPay, is an automatic time and attendance collection tool, allowing employees to clock in via mobile or kiosk, with hours flowing directly into payroll calculations. For construction and field-based businesses, the ability to track hours by job and activity brings a new layer of operational clarity to your business.

BrightCIS received significant attention as a purpose-built cloud solution for managing Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) subcontractors. This is particularly valuable as CIS remains one of the most error-prone and time-consuming compliance tasks for payroll processors.

What were the key themes across all the sessions?

Three clear themes emerged:

1. Legislation continues to get more complex, and the human cost of getting it wrong keeps climbing

2. AI is no longer theoretical, it’s actively being deployed to handle the repetitive, high-pressure work that burns out payroll processors

3. Integration matters

What actions should bureaus take after National Payroll Week?

If you’re managing a payroll function, three actions stand out. First, review your maternity administration process against Lorna’s session as it’s a high-risk compliance area and simple process improvements often catch errors before they escalate. Second, explore whether Ask The Payroll Centre or Oscar could reduce pressure during peak periods or new starter onboarding. Third, if your bureau’s clients handle subcontractors, seriously evaluate whether a dedicated CIS solution like BrightCIS could help your team.

Above all else, if you’re not already a customer, consider how BrightPay could automate payroll compliance and help your team achieve more in less time. Book a demo to see how integration and AI-powered features work with payroll software to streamline your firm.

This content may have been developed with the assistance of AI tools. Content is reviewed by a member of the Bright team before publication. Guidance on legislation can be obtained from your industry body.