Autumn Budget 2026 · 28 October
The headline is rates. The cost is labour.
What the Budget does to a hospitality P&L from April 2027, in plain numbers, and exactly what it takes to hold your profit.
Live webinar with Ops Club, Thursday 29 October WS Hospitality Summit London, Thursday 19 NovemberUp 3.9% from 1 April 2027. The 18 to 20 rate goes to £11.27.
Up from 15% this year, for 2027/28 and 2028/29. England only.
No rates up to £18,000 rateable value, tapering to £21,000. Single properties only.
Rises with inflation from 1 February 2027. No freeze, and no VAT cut.
presents
Budget 2026: Implications for Hospitality and the Night-Time Economy
A panel with the Institute of Hospitality and the Night Time Industries Association, unpacking what the Budget means for tax, operating costs, employment and investment. Bring your questions: this page has the numbers to go with the answers.
Your venue, in thirty seconds
What will it cost you?
Three inputs for a first answer. The full calculator adds age bands, supervisors, small business relief and drinks duty.
Extra cost a year from April 2027
£21,920
£422 a week, before alcohol duty
An estimate on adult rates, keeping supervisors' pay gap. Nothing you enter leaves this page.
Where the money goes
The relief is real. It is also small.
The same pub, line by line. The rates saving everyone is talking about covers less than a tenth of the extra wage bill, and on a busy wet trade the duty rise alone outweighs it.
A pub, £7,000 rates bill
Relief rises to 35%, after inflation on the underlying bill.
A restaurant, the same bill
No pub relief. Held to 3.5% inflation, which is still a cash rise.
Holding your profit
Three levers. Pick one, or mix them.
What the same pub needs to stand still. Three different conversations with three different people in the business, which is why they need deciding now and not in April.
01 · Price
1.77%
across the menu
A £6.20 pint goes to £6.31. Fastest to land, and the one that costs covers if the menu is already at its ceiling.
02 · Covers
22
more covers a week
At £28 a head and 72% GP. The hardest to bank, because extra trade usually needs extra labour.
03 · Rota
25
fewer rota hours a week
Fully loaded at £13.21. Fully in your control, and the one most operators leave until last.
Most venues need a smaller price move, a tighter rota and a menu engineering pass, together
From now to April
The plan, month by month
A budget set before 28 October is already wrong. This is the order we are working through it with our clients.
-
November
Rebuild the 2027 budget
New wage rates by role and by site, not a percentage on last year's line.
-
December
Decide the pay structure
Keep the gap for supervisors or hold their pay, deliberately, and tell the team.
-
January
Answer the supplier letters
Accept the duty, push back on anything added on top of it.
-
1 February
Alcohol duty rises
RPI on every pint, glass and measure.
-
March
Move prices, check bills
One considered price move. Check every rates bill applies the right relief.
-
1 April
£13.21 and new rates
The wage rise and the rates changes land on the same day.
The next step, in person
WS Hospitality Summit London
The Budget is the brief. Labour, margins and cashflow are the work. Spend a day with 50 operators, partners and decision-makers, talking straight about what it takes to run hospitality into 2027.
- Straight-talking panels
- Unfiltered operator insight
- What it actually feels like to operate in 2026, and what people are doing about it
- Coffee and pastries to start, then a long, family-style lunch with drinks, on us
- When
- Thursday 19 November, 10am to 4pm
- Where
- Daffodil Mulligan, 70-74 City Road, London EC1Y
- Who
- Invitation only, limited to 50 senior leaders
Bring your numbers from the calculator. It is a better conversation with them.
What was not in it
Plan on what was announced
Hospitality VAT stays at 20%, despite the sector's case for a reduced rate.
Employer NI stays at 15% on pay above £5,000, with the £10,500 employment allowance.
Extended for two more years to fund the rates package. Check each site before assuming a saving.
Owners: the measures that hit you personally, property income tax, profit extraction, Founders Relief and the visitor levy, are in Budget 2026: what it means for hospitality.
Built for operators
We put this together with Ops Club, the community for hospitalitarians, for the people who have to turn a Budget into a rota, a price list and a plan. Williams, Stanley & Co. is a hospitality-only accountancy firm: we close the books in six working days and report against your budget every week, so a change like this shows up in the numbers while there is still time to act on it.
Join the Thursday 29 October webinar on Ops Club
Then join us in person at the WS Hospitality Summit London, Thursday 19 November
Prepared on the day of the Budget from the measures announced and the GOV.UK business rates note, for venues in England. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland set business rates separately. The under-18 and apprentice rates, RPI and duty per litre were not published on the day and are our working assumptions. The example pub: £25,000 a week, 450 hours at the National Living Wage, 60 at the 18 to 20 rate, 20 at the under-18 rate and 150 just above the minimum, a £7,000 rates bill, and 1,200 pints, 60 bottles of wine and 600 spirit measures a week. General information, not advice on your own business: talk to us before you act on it.