Returning to work

Your employer should respond within 28 days to your notification of your intention to take maternity leave, and should tell you the date of your return to work. If you are returning to work after Ordinary Maternity Leave, you have the right to return to the job you were doing before you left work and on no less favourable terms.

If you are returning to work after taking a period of Additional Maternity Leave, you have more limited rights to return:

• to the job you were doing or, if this is not reasonably practicable, to another suitable and appropriate job;

• to no less favourable terms and conditions; and

• with your seniority and pension rights as they were before you began maternity leave.

If you want to return to work before the end of the maternity leave period, you have to give your employer eight weeks’ notice.