Universal credit question

If you do 16 hours a week your UC won't be affected, if you do more then your UC will be reduced

Going from full time to part time would increase your UC amount but would not fully replace the drop in income, so overall with UC plus wages your income in total would be less. You can also claim 85% if childcare costs back on UC if working. If you stop working completely you would not be better off as your UC would not fully replace your salary. It is designed to make you better off by working.

You’re always better off working.

Towards the end of mat leave when I was on full UC I was getting around £1200. When I went back to work part time (21 hours) I would get £1000 UC plus £1600 from work. At first I thought it was a mistake, but nope that how they do it.

I work full time now in a different higher paying job, and I still get a UC top up but it’s so small, it’s not worth mentioning.

For every £1 you earn, UC gets deducted by 55p. So depends how much you earn tbh and tax bracket, outgoings etc.
You can use the benefits calculator or chat GPT to work out if you’d be better off working or not.