The business and advisory firm states that the number of businesses being investigated for minimum wage offences has risen but the firm says that this is often a result of commonplace practices such as salary sacrifice schemes and employee workwear policies inadvertently dragging employee pay under the minimum wage threshold.

The warning comes as HMRC intensifies its focus on minimum wage breaches, which has included a 99% increase in its enforcement budget to £26.3m since 2016 and growth in the number of minimum wage enforcement officers from 330 in 2017 to more than 450 in 2021.

The government has also increased the potential penalties facing businesses found to have underpaid their employees, which have risen from 50% of the arrears owed to workers in 2014 to 200% of the underpayment today.