Construction is one of the few sectors in Ireland where the pay you owe your workers is not something you get to decide on your own. On top of the National Minimum Wage, a Sectoral Employment Order sets legally binding minimum hourly rates, overtime premiums, pension contributions and sick pay for most people doing construction work. Get the rates right and it is simply a cost of operating in the sector. Get them wrong and the shortfall is backdated, enforceable and usually larger than employers expect.
This guide sets out what the Construction Sectoral Employment Order actually requires, who it covers, and where the common pay mistakes arise for construction sector employers. The figures below are the statutory minimums in force at the time of writing. Because they are reviewed and increased periodically, treat the current schedule published by the Workplace Relations Commission as the definitive source before your next pay run.
Quick Answer: What must Irish employers pay construction workers?
Under the Sectoral Employment Order (Construction Sector), employers must pay covered workers no less than the statutory minimum hourly rate for their classification, apply the SEO’s overtime and unsocial-hours premiums, and contribute to a compliant construction industry pension and sick pay scheme. These rates sit above the National Minimum Wage and attach to the work being carried out, not to the company’s label. Under the order in force from 1 August 2025 (S.I. No. 620 of 2024), the Craftsperson rate is €23.00 per hour, with separate rates for Category A, Category B, New Entrant and apprentice workers.
What the Construction Sectoral Employment Order Actually Is
A Sectoral Employment Order, or SEO, is a set of statutory pay and conditions for a whole industry. The Labour Court examines the sector, makes a recommendation, and the Minister gives it legal effect through a statutory instrument. Once made, it binds every employer carrying out the relevant work across the sector, not only firms with union agreements or a particular size of payroll.
The current instrument for construction is the Sectoral Employment Order (Construction Sector) 2024, S.I. No. 620 of 2024, which took effect on 1 August 2025 and should be read together with its predecessor, S.I. No. 207 of 2023. It fixes minimum rates of pay, overtime and unsocial-hours premiums, and pension and sick pay contributions. It is important to be clear that the SEO does not replace the National Minimum Wage. It sits above it, and for covered workers it is the SEO rate, not the minimum wage, that is the legal floor.
Who the SEO Covers, and Who It Does Not
Whether the SEO applies comes down to two separate questions, and the second one is the one businesses most often overlook.
- Does the employer operate in the construction sector, as the SEO defines it?
- Does the individual worker’s role fall into one of the SEO’s defined classifications?
Both need to be answered, because the SEO applies to the work rather than to the company as a whole. A single business can sit on both sides of the line at once. It is entirely possible for one part of your workforce to be outside the SEO while another part, doing different work, is inside it. That is why a single label such as “construction company” or “manufacturer” does not settle the question on its own, and why classifying each role correctly matters as much as classifying the business.
The Minimum Hourly Rates You Must Meet
Where the SEO applies, workers must be placed in the correct classification and paid no less than the statutory minimum for it. Under the order in force from 1 August 2025 (S.I. No. 620 of 2024), the minimum hourly rates are:
- Craftsperson: €23.00 per hour
- Category A Worker: €22.32 per hour (this category includes steel fixers, scaffolders holding an advanced card with four years of experience, crane drivers and heavy machine operators)
- Category B Worker: €20.71 per hour
- New Entrant Operative: €16.74 per hour (this rate applies during a worker’s first two years in the sector)
Apprentices are paid on a separate year-by-year scale that rises with each year of the apprenticeship. Because every one of these figures is reviewed and updated periodically, the current schedule on workplacerelations.ie is the number to rely on, and the full order is published on the Irish Statute Book. The practical point for employers is simple: paying the National Minimum Wage is not enough where the SEO applies, and classifying a worker into a lower category than their actual role also creates a shortfall.
Overtime and Premium Pay Under the SEO
The SEO does not just set a basic hourly rate. It also sets premium rates that depend on the day and the time the work is carried out, and a flat “time and a half for all overtime” policy will not meet the requirement if your workers are covered. In broad terms, weekday hours worked from the normal finishing time up to midnight attract time and a half, and hours after midnight up to the normal start attract double time. On a Saturday, the first four hours attract time and a half and the hours after that attract double time. Sunday hours are paid at double time, and public holidays are paid at double time with an additional day’s leave. Confirm the exact bands against the current order before setting an overtime policy, because the structure is detailed and the premiums add up quickly on a busy site.
Pension and Sick Pay: The Obligations Employers Miss
Beyond hourly pay, the SEO requires contributions to a compliant construction industry pension and sick pay scheme for covered workers, commonly through the Construction Workers’ Pension Scheme. Both the employer and the worker contribute, and the amounts are fixed rather than discretionary.
Under the order in force from 1 August 2025, the weekly pension contribution is €53.14 in total, made up of €31.87 from the employer and €21.27 from the worker, with covered workers entering the scheme from age 18. The weekly sick pay contribution is €3.00 in total, made up of €2.37 from the employer and €0.63 from the worker, and the scheme must provide sick pay cover of at least ten weeks in any calendar year. These are the minimums in the current order and are revised over time, so verify them against the WRC schedule before you set up deductions.
One point causes real confusion. The State’s new auto-enrolment pension does not discharge the SEO’s separate construction pension obligation. The two can sit alongside each other, but auto-enrolment does not replace the dedicated construction scheme. Getting the deductions, contributions and unsocial-hours premiums right every week is exactly the kind of detail that a compliant outsourced payroll function is built to handle, and it is where in-house payroll set up for a standard PAYE workforce most often slips.
The Fabrication and Installation Grey Area
The hardest cases are businesses that both make and fit their product, and steel fabrication is the classic example. If your business manufactures components in a fixed workshop and the finished item is delivered to site for someone else to install, that manufacturing activity is generally treated as production and outside the construction SEO. If your own employees then go on-site to erect, fix or install that steelwork as part of a building or civil engineering project, that on-site activity is generally treated as construction work within the SEO, even though the same company also runs the workshop.
A business that does both does not get to pick one classification for the whole operation. It is common, and often correct, for the same employer to have workshop staff on standard manufacturing terms and an installation crew on SEO rates, because they are genuinely doing different work. Steel fixers and structural steel erectors are specifically named within the SEO’s classifications, which is a strong signal of how on-site steelwork is treated. The exposure builds quietly when a business that started out as “we make steel” gradually becomes “we make and install steel” without the pay structure moving with it.
What Getting Construction Pay Wrong Actually Costs
The employers who get caught out are rarely cutting corners on purpose. More often it is a payroll structure set up years ago and never revisited as the business grew. The cost of that drift is real. Assuming the SEO does not apply when it does exposes you to backdated pay liability, pension and sick pay arrears, and enforceable WRC findings. Underpayments against a statutory rate can also amount to unlawful deductions, which brings its own risk under the Payment of Wages Act.
A WRC inspector does not need a complaint to investigate. Inspections in construction and related sectors can be proactive and unannounced, and the pattern of how the WRC enforces pay compliance shows that these cases are pursued in full. If you are not certain which category your crew falls into, that uncertainty is common and it is exactly what a short review can resolve. PurpleTree works through this with construction and fabrication employers regularly, looking at what the work actually involves, where it is carried out, and how your current contracts and pay structures line up against the SEO’s tests. Our employment law and WRC support exists to get you ahead of this rather than discover it after an inspection.
This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Statutory pay rates change, so always confirm the current figures against the Sectoral Employment Order published on workplacerelations.ie. For advice on your specific situation, speak to the PurpleTree HR team.
Frequently asked questions
On this page
