Salary protection helps you manage salary sacrifice while ensuring employees retain a minimum level of pay after enrolling in salary sacrifice benefits.
By default, Kota protects every employee's applicable National Minimum Wage (NMW) (or National Living Wage (NLW) where applicable). This ensures salary sacrifice cannot reduce an employee's pay below the legal minimum.
If your organisation wants to provide additional protection, you can configure one additional salary protection rule. This allows you to require employees to retain either:
💷 a minimum monthly salary, or
📐 a minimum percentage of their gross monthly salary.
When an additional rule is configured, Kota automatically compares it with the employee's National Minimum Wage threshold and applies whichever requires the employee to retain more salary.
🔍 How salary protection works
🔍 How salary protection works
For every employee, Kota calculates the maximum amount of salary they can sacrifice while remaining above the applicable salary protection threshold. The threshold is always based on:
the employee's applicable National Minimum Wage (calculated using their age, contracted weekly hours and the applicable NMW rates), and
one optional company salary protection rule, if configured:
minimum monthly salary, or
minimum salary percentage.
If a company rule requires the employee to retain more salary than the National Minimum Wage threshold, Kota uses the company rule instead.
Kota then takes into account the employee's existing salary sacrifice benefits to calculate how much additional salary they can still sacrifice.
⚙ Salary protection options
⚙ Salary protection options
🏛 National Minimum Wage only (default) — Kota only applies National Minimum Wage protection. Employees can sacrifice salary until they reach the minimum salary required by UK legislation, based on their age and contracted working hours.
💷 Minimum monthly salary — configure a fixed amount employees must retain after salary sacrifice. For example, a configured minimum of £2,000 means employees cannot sacrifice salary that would take their remaining monthly salary below £2,000. If an employee's NMW threshold is higher, Kota applies that instead.
📐 Minimum salary percentage — configure a percentage of gross monthly salary employees must retain. For example, requiring 20% retained means Kota ensures remaining salary never falls below that percentage. If the NMW threshold is higher, Kota applies that instead.
👀 What employees see
👀 What employees see
Employees don't see the salary protection rules your organisation has configured. Instead, Kota applies those rules automatically and shows employees their Budget left to sacrifice — the amount they can still sacrifice each month while remaining within the applicable threshold. This is explained from the employee's point of view in “What is my Salary Sacrifice budget?”
That budget takes into account:
the employee's salary,
the applicable National Minimum Wage,
your configured salary protection rule (if any), and
any existing salary sacrifice benefits already in Kota
Employees always see an up-to-date view of how much they can still sacrifice.
🚦Employee statuses
🚦Employee statuses
🟢 Under limit — the employee has remaining budget and can enrol in additional benefits, provided they stay within it.
🟡 Close to the limit — by default, employees are Close to the limit when £100 or less of their budget remains. This helps administrators identify employees nearing their maximum allowable sacrifice.
🔴 Over the limit — the employee's current sacrifice exceeds what's now permitted after applying all salary protection rules. This flags accounts that may need review
🧮 Example scenarios
🧮 Example scenarios
These examples are for illustration only. The actual budget is calculated automatically from the employee's gross salary, contracted hours, applicable NMW, your salary protection configuration, and their existing salary sacrifice benefits.
Scenario 1 — National Minimum Wage only (default).
Your organisation relies solely on National Minimum Wage
Gross monthly salary | Existing sacrifice | Budget left | Status |
£3,500 | £450 | £320 | 🟢 Under limit |
Because no additional company rule has been configured, the employee's available budget is based solely on the National Minimum Wage threshold.
Scenario 2 — Minimum monthly salary of £2,500.
Your organisation requires employees to retain at least £2,500 a month.
Gross monthly salary | Existing sacrifice | Budget left | Status |
£3,500 | £900 | £80 | 🟡 Close to the limit |
Here, the company-configured minimum monthly salary requires the employee to retain more than the National Minimum Wage threshold, so it becomes the applicable rule
Scenario 3 — Minimum salary percentage of 30%.
Your organisation requires employees to retain 30% of their gross monthly salary.
Gross monthly salary | Existing sacrifice | Budget left | Status |
£3,500 | £1,150 | - £25 | 🔴 Over the limit |
Here, the percentage-based rule results in the employee exceeding their available budget, so they're shown as Over the limit.
✅ Salary protection is a compliance safeguard
✅ Salary protection is a compliance safeguard
Salary protection helps you manage salary sacrifice across multiple employees and providers while supporting compliance with National Minimum Wage requirements and your own policy. The calculated budgets and statuses support decisionmaking — they don't automatically approve or reject requests. Employees can still submit requests that would put them at or over their limit.
Calculating each employee's available salary sacrifice budget
Highlighting who is Under limit, Close to the limit, or Over the limit
Identifying requests that may need review before approval
Supporting consistent decisions across your organisation, for both employees and HR
💡 The final decision to approve or reject a request always rests with the authorised administrator or employer — salary protection gives you the information to make that decision, not a replacement for your approval process.
If you have any questions, reach out to us at [email protected] and we'll work through it with you.