Guide to freelance maternity leave

Currently expecting a baby and have no idea what to do with your freelance business? You’re not alone. Pregnancy can be as overwhelming as it is wonderful for any expectant woman (whether she’s pregnant or preparing to adopt), let alone when she’s also got to decide how she can nurture her work alongside her new arrival.

After all, let’s not beat around the bush here: you’ve worked hard to get to where you are today, securing clients, pitching services and creating relationships that have allowed you to build your brand and expand your business.

So what happens when you’re supposed to put all that on hold?

Fundamentally, there are four business options that any freelance parent might find themselves facing:

1. Put your business entirely on-hold while you’re on leave
2. Pass over work to a colleague or trusted peer
3. Get work prepared and scheduled in advance
4. Carry on as best you can, how you can

Of course, the feasibility of these scenarios varies hugely according to the industry you work in and the kind of business you run, but hopefully they give you a rough starting position to begin with.

Much like anything to do with pregnancy, maternity leave won’t look the same for any two women. Whether you’re planning to take two weeks off or six months, factors such as the wellbeing of you and your baby, your finances, your support network and your perhaps deep-down desire to get back to work will all have an influence over how long you have away from your business.

However, while your set-up might be different, there are certain fundamental principles that every freelancer can apply to get their business ready for maternity leave. Whether you’re planning to have your ‘out of office’ on for months or will be checking your emails from your hospital bed, make sure you’ve taken these points on-board as you countdown to welcoming your new arrival.

The current rate of Maternity Allowance for freelancers and the self-employed sits at £184.03 a week. To qualify to receive this amount, you must have paid Class 2 National Insurance (NI) for at last 13 of the 66 weeks that immediately precede the birth of your baby.

If you haven’t paid enough NI, the figure significantly drops by 82 per cent to £27 a week, for 39 weeks. It’s worth noting that you might be able to increase this by making early NI payments; HMRC or the DWP will be able to advise. If you're struggling to get clear advice, feel free to email [email protected] and we can chase up the relevant government department on your behalf.

“I’ve found navigating it a bit difficult - there doesn’t seem to be much clear-cut advice or information,” admits marketing freelancer Katie Middleton, who is currently expecting her second child. “When I was in employment, it was much easier to arrange. Because I’m fairly new to self-employment, I haven’t had the chance to pay any NI contributions yet so as it stands I only qualify for £27 a week. Thankfully, I was able to tick the box to give permission for the Maternity Allowance team to get in touch with HMRC on my behalf to offer me the chance to pay my NI contributions early, so I should hopefully receive more.”

You could also give some thought to Shared Parental Leave, if you can make it work for your circumstances. If the mother is claiming Maternity Allowance and self-employed, the partner may be able to take Shared Parental Leave or Shared Parental Pay if they are employed. Unfortunately, if the partner is self-employed they will be unable to claim either Shared Parental Leave or Shared Parental Pay.

For science writer Richard Berks, applying for Shared Parental Leave for the birth of his first child (when in full-time employment) was a no-brainer but by the time he was a freelancer and preparing for the birth of his second baby, he was unable to claim Shared Parental Leave.

“I’d like to take a long period of parental leave again but I’m not sure how viable it is,” he says. “I’m looking into how I might be able to outsource more work though I’m not sure I’m at the stage where I’d be able to hand over everything I do to another person. We’re also in a different situation financially now than we were with our first child. Of course, I’m in a privileged position as a freelance father to a new baby - freelance mothers in the same situation may not have any choice but to hand over their work.”

First of all, apply for Maternity Allowance. The government’s website gives more information about the terms of applying and you should hear back within 20 days as to whether or not your claim has been successful. You can claim Maternity Allowance once you’ve been pregnant for 26 weeks, with payments starting anywhere from 11 weeks prior to the birth of your child and paid every two or four weeks.

While filling out paperwork might not appeal to your inner procrastinator (hey - we’ve all got one!) the reality is that getting this ticked off sooner rather than later will give you time to handle any issues that might arise from your application.

“I would definitely advise any freelancers to think about applying for Maternity Allowance early on,” says Laura West, founder of The Doers, a brand marketing consultancy powered by a freelance collective. “The form is long and finding all the relevant information to support your application can be very time-consuming. The last thing you want is to be worrying about money and checking the post every day when you should be resting and preparing for your little one’s arrival.”

Additionally - and if you can - start saving now. Creating your own back-up fund can offer much-needed relief down the line, meaning you’re not solely reliant on government support.

Saving money is never easy but there are a few tricks to help you begin:

• Ascertain exactly what your financial situation is. If you’re already on top of it, great. If you’re not, now’s the time to have an honest look at your income, outgoings and existing savings. Knowing exactly what you’re working with will help you make decisions based on reality rather than hunches.
• Can you take on any extra projects? If so, move any profit made from these straight into a separate savings account. Taking on more work might be the last thing on your mind if you’re already exhausted but if you’re able to, it could offer a bit of fiscal relief down the line.
• Cut costly habits. If you’re no longer splashing out on flat whites, for example, could you start transferring the money you would have spent into a side account? Of course, you don’t want to quit anything you love - but ‘unnecessary’ expenditure and dud direct debits could easily be recycled into fuel for your rainy day fund.

Maternity leave is a huge period of change in any woman’s life. From preparing to welcome her baby into the world to adjusting to life with a newborn, it’s an experience quite unlike any other. Whilst sleep deprivation might be unavoidable, ensuring that your freelance business is in a strong position before you switch that all-important out-of-office on is a must.

Whether you’re going to take a few weeks, a couple of months or perhaps even a whole year of maternity leave, planning in advance is essential for freelancers and the self-employed. After all, you’ll need to decide:

• How long you want (and can afford) to take off, as well as apply for financial support.
• Whether or not you want to arrange someone to cover your work for some or all of your leave.
• What work you need to get signed off ahead of your leave beginning.
• What work you can schedule to go live whilst you’re off.
• When you’re likely to want to take KIT days.

Being armed in advance with as much information as possible - from what you’re entitled to all the way through to what projects you need to sign-off before you head on leave - can make the experience that bit easier to navigate.

Key to everything? Preparation. The months of your pregnancy may well be stretching ahead but there’s no such thing as getting organised too soon. Whether your struggle healthwise or simply find yourself overwhelmed with the sheer volume of what you need to do, start now - right now! - to get your freelance business in the best possible position before your maternity leave begins.

The amount of Maternity Allowance you can receive will depend on your Class 2 National Insurance contributions. It’s worth submitting your claim as soon as you can - it takes up to 20 days to receive a decision, and making your claim earlier rather than later can help limit the potential for any nasty surprises closer to your baby’s birth. The form is pretty hefty, clocking in at over 20 pages, so it certainly pays to be punctual with this one.

You can be eligible for up to 39 weeks of Maternity Allowance if you’re self-employed, depending on how long you’ve paid your Class 2 National Insurance contributions for. If you’ve paid them for at least 13 of the 66 weeks prior to your baby’s due date, you should qualify for the standard £184.03 Maternity Allowance. If you haven’t paid enough, the weekly figure you receive will sit somewhere between £27 and £172.48.

The Department for Work & Pensions will check to see how much you’ve paid when you submit your claim and will notify you if you haven’t paid enough. Even if it’s bad news, you might still be able to receive the standard £184.03 by making early National Insurance payments, which HMRC will be able to advise you on.

It’s also worth noting that you can claim Child Benefit once you’ve registered the birth of your baby. This can range from £16.95 to £25.60 a week per child; the figure varies according to how many children you have. Child Benefit can also be backdated for up to three months, so don’t worry if you forget to apply straightaway.

If you provide active, regular services for clients that can’t be delivered in advance, you might want to consider organising cover for some of your work while you’re on maternity leave.

You could actively look to hire someone or, more simply, could look to pass clients over to a trusted contact for the duration of your time off. If you’re planning to do this, it’s worth considering:

• How much of a handover they need. Decide as soon as you can if this is the course of action you want to take. If it is, work out how much of an introduction to your work and clients your cover will need and liaise with them to ensure they’re adequately prepared by the time you go on leave.
• Whether you need an agreement. On the off-chance your cover might try to poach a client, it’s worth protecting your work with a contract.
• If you’ll keep in touch with clients. Depending on how long you’re taking off, it could be worth using KIT days to host catch-ups with your clients. Yes, they’re being looked after by your cover - but it’s still a great opportunity for you to keep a foot in the business. Whether you choose to do this or not, let your clients know in advance so it isn’t a surprise to them should they hear from you.

If you are unable to arrange cover for your business due to the skilled nature of what you do, you might want to pre-plan as much work as possible before your maternity leave begins. This could include:

• Scheduling content, including social media posts, blog posts and newsletters to your database. If it’s not strictly essential to your business, you might want to decide whether or not you can strip back your output - now’s not the time to be sweating over daily blog posts if they don’t get much traction. 
• Recording content, such as videos and podcast episodes that can be edited and scheduled to go live at specified times.
• Planning the communications that potential new clients will see when they visit your website for the first time or contact you via email.

Of course, if you’re not working on your own and run your business with someone else, the pressure to prep might be reduced. For Laura, having the invaluable support of her The Doers co-founder meant things felt more manageable - to an extent. “I was very lucky to have the full backing of Jess,” she explains. “We were honest with our clients about my pregnancy and our plans, and we focussed on finding the right freelancers as part of our collective to support Jess while I was off. The client-side felt manageable and I planned to take six weeks fully off and then start flexing work around my baby.”

She continues: “The flip-side was that we were building a business and that couldn’t just stop overnight. Whilst the client-servicing and ‘doing’ part was in safe hands, I continued to run the admin side: invoicing, VAT returns and so on. This was partly necessary to keep the momentum of the business going but was also partly for me, too - it gave me some headspace from nappy changes and made me feel engaged and interested in life outside of the newborn bubble.”

In among the whirlwind of change you’ll be going through both pre- and post-partum, your own health and mental wellbeing should still be a priority. Putting pressure on yourself about returning to work could be the last thing you need when your body is still recovering from pregnancy and birth, and while you’re adjusting to your new parental role.

“Rest and sleep are essential ingredients required to heal and recover, and yet a new mum will find these in short supply,” says Emma Brockwell, author of Why Did Nobody Tell Me? How to Protect, Heal and Nurture Your Body Through Motherhood (Ebury, 2021). “The demands of motherhood, the sleepless nights, the constant lifting and nursing, along with all the other daily requirements of being a new mum, are extreme. It can take its toll on any mum’s mental and physical health - and the addition of work stresses is likely to affect even the most resilient of women.”

Additionally, scheduling in ‘you’ time might be something that’s far from the top of your to-do list when you’re juggling a newborn and a business but it’s essential.

“I found that making time for regular exercise when I had my third baby made a huge difference to both my physical and mental health,” says Laura. “Now it’s something I won’t give up! I feel better, my standard of work is better and I’m a better mum. ‘Me’ time has meant my shoulders aren’t up by my ears and I don’t snap at the smallest of things. Try to start with even just 15 minutes - have a hot shower, a quick walk or sit down with a magazine and a cuppa. You’ll feel so much better for doing so.”

The inadvertent expectation of our social networks and society as a whole can leave many of us feeling we need to be nailing everything in order to consider ourselves as ‘acceptable’ functioning adults, parents and business owners. The ‘perfect’ myth we’re fed via social channels and the media might also make you feel like you’re far from nailing motherhood, business or, well, anything.

“Your body has just done an incredible thing and this is likely to be your most important role to date,” says Emma. “Enjoy it, embrace it and don’t ever be afraid to reach out for help. Motherhood is a rollercoaster - some days you’ll nail it and others, the juggle will be very real. Know that every other parent is going through this too.”

Additionally, there might be a point when you feel under pressure for considering your work; for example, some women might feel guilty for wanting to get back to their business sooner than they’d imagined, whilst others might wish they could have more time away from it. Either way: do what’s best for you, rather than what you imagine is expected of you.

“There’s a real tendency to glamourise the working mum who has it all,” says Laura. “Perfect kids, her own business, great body... Don’t believe the hype - it’s simply not the case and wouldn’t it be boring if it was? Working with your baby sleeping in a sling, crying into your laptop, not showering for days - those are the realities. It’s hard but I promise you, it will get better.”