News story

Wilko in administration: information for employees and creditors

Wilko went into administration on 10 August 2023. This page provides information on how to claim redundancy or register as a creditor.

Wilko shop front

The Insolvency Service has confirmed that administrators were appointed to Wilko Limited, Wilko.com Limited, and Wilkinson Hardware Stores Limited. On 23 August 2023, administrators were also appointed over Kin Limited.

This will be a hugely worrying time for employees of Wilko, as well as their customers and suppliers. Government will do all it can to support them.

If you are an employee, customer or supplier of Wilko, this page will provide you with the advice and information.

Information for former employees:

If you’ve been dismissed

If you’ve been dismissed, you might be entitled to redundancy pay and statutory notice pay from the Insolvency Service.

Wilko will pay you any holiday pay, unpaid wages, overtime or commission you are owed.

Information about your rights, how to apply and how we calculate payments is available on GOV.UK.

Who is eligible

You can apply to the Insolvency Service for redundancy and other payments if you worked for these companies under an employment contract.

Workers and self-employed contractors who provided services to the above companies are not eligible to apply. Instead, these individuals should contact the administrator to register as creditors.

Company directors

Check if you can apply for redundancy payments if you have been dismissed and were a director.

How to apply

The administrator will give details about how to apply and will also give you a case reference number (eg CN12345678). Once you have this information you can apply online.

The joint administrators can be contacted at:

Email: uk_wilko_teammembers@pwc.com

Telephone: 0345 266 8525

We are aware that some customers may be having trouble accessing our online service to make a claim. This seems to be affecting those who use Virgin Media as their broadband provider.

Initial investigations suggest that the issue is caused by child safety settings being turned on.

To check if your child safety settings are turned on, sign in to your Virgin Media online account or register for an account if you don’t already have one.

Once you’re signed in, go to ‘Account Settings’ > ‘Online security’. Under ‘Online security’ you should see an option for ‘Child Safe’. ‘Child Safe’ is on if it’s showing as purple. Toggler ‘Child Safe’ to off (so it’s grey instead of purple) and save the changes.

If this does not resolve your issue, please contact your internet service provider.

We are working to resolve this issue and apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Paying your claim

On average it takes 14 days to process and pay claims. However, sometimes we need to get additional information from the administrator, which can take a bit of time. We’ll contact you directly if any further information is needed. We always try to pay eligible claims within 6 weeks of receiving the application.

To allow us to deal with everyone’s application as quickly as possible, please do not contact us to check the status of your application until after the 6 weeks have passed.

There’s information on GOV.UK explaining the payments we can make.

Getting help with your application for redundancy payments

If you need help completing your application, you can contact the Redundancy Payments helpline on 0330 331 0020.

When calling, please have your case reference number (eg CN12345678) and National Insurance number to hand. If you do not have a case reference number, please contact the administrator.

You can also contact us using our online contact form.

When you complete the contact form, please only use the email address you gave on your application form. Otherwise, we won’t be able to respond to you for security reasons.

Other support available to you

Factsheet: finding a new job, managing your finances and benefits available to you (PDF, 487 KB, 2 pages)

Information for creditors

You’ll need to register as a creditor in the administration if:

  • you haven’t been paid for goods or services you’ve supplied to Wilko
  • you’ve paid the companies for goods or services that you have not received

To register, you’ll need to email the administrator.

Published 1 September 2023
Last updated 12 September 2023 + show all updates
  1. Updated with information that Wilko will be paying staff holiday pay, unpaid wages, overtime, or commission that is owed to them.

  2. First published.