Implementing the Employment Rights Bill: the timeline for 2026 and beyond

The government’s original proposal to bring in ‘day one’ rights for unfair dismissal has been replaced by a six-month qualifying period for unfair dismissal. This change is welcome news for employers but will still impact their approach to recruitment, performance management and termination processes, because getting things right in that first six months will become doubly important.

Implementation: January 2027, for dismissals on or after that date, so effectively applies to staff engaged prior to this date.

As a compromise to not pushing through on day one unfair dismissal, the government announced that the compensation cap for unfair dismissal will be lifted. There is currently debate amongst those around the table as to what “lifted” actually meant, but the government’s interpretation was that it would be removed altogether. The impact for high earners and employers is significant. The removal of the cap has been held up by the House of Lords, so we need to wait to see whether the government will insist on this.

Implementation: Currently delayed in parliamentary ‘ping-pong’; implementation to be confirmed, but likely to be January 2027.

The time limits to bring most claims to the employment tribunal will be increased from three to six months.

Implementation: October 2026

Although flexible working requests became a ‘day one’ right from 6 April 2024, the ERB goes further. Employers will only be able to reject a flexible working request where both of the following conditions apply: there is one of the current statutory grounds for refusing a request; and it is reasonable for the employer to refuse the application.

Implementation: 2027

A raft of complex provisions will go some way to “banning exploitative zero-hour contracts”, as pledged by Labour in its policy statement. Provisions include frameworks to give workers the right to a contract that reflects hours regularly worked, reasonable notice of changes in shifts, and compensation for shifts cancelled or curtailed at short notice. Zero hours rules will apply to agency workers too.

A proposed amendment by the House of Lords to give the employee a right to request minimum hours, rather than the employer being required proactively to offer the minimum hours, was not insisted on by the Lords in the end. This means that employers will have significant monitoring obligations so they can keep track of when an offer of revised/enhanced minimum hours must be made.

Implementation:

2026  

• Consultation on zero-hour worker protections

2027

• Zero-hour and low-hour worker protections introduced

Enhanced collective redundancy protection will be achieved by a change to the test for ‘establishment’. Separate geographical establishments will not apply, and each employing company will be one GB establishment.

The government confirmed in a consultation response (37-page / 402KB PDF) that it will also strengthen remedies against abuse of rules on collective redundancy by increasing the cap on protective awards from 90 to 180 days’ pay.

Implementation:

2026

• Consultation on collective redundancy reform

April 2026

• Increased protective awards for failure to collectively consult

2027

• New establishment test

There will be defined categories of “restricted variations” where it will be automatically unfair to dismiss and offer re-engagement on new terms unless a financial necessity test is met. These will include detrimental changes to pay, pensions, hours, shifts and holidays. Seeking to impose a clause which enables the employer to vary the contract in these areas will be a restricted variation in itself. However, an automatic unfair dismissal will not be triggered where changes are minor, “routine and non-detrimental”, or the change relates to the place of work. A new test of fairness will be applied in cases of non-automatic unfairness.

Specific amends also apply to the public sector, where a different test of financial necessity will apply.

Implementation: October 2026

It will be automatically unfair to dismiss an employee where they are to be replaced by “an individual who is not an employee of the employer” and that individual will undertake the same or substantially the same activities as the employee performed prior to dismissal. This is clearly intended to catch circumstances where employees are replaced with, for example, agency workers.

Implementation: October 2026

A new duty will rest on employers to take “all reasonable steps” to prevent all forms of harassment, including by third parties such as customers or suppliers. This goes further than the current obligation to take “reasonable steps”.

The ERB also builds in further whistleblowing protections for those reporting sexual harassment, and non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) will be void in cases of harassment or discrimination.

Implementation

2026 – possibly:

• Duty to take all reasonable steps to prevent harassment
• Amendments to whistleblowing protections to specifically include harassment complaints

To be confirmed

• NDAs for harassment and discrimination prohibited
• NDA prohibition for victims of crime extended

These include making parental, paternity and bereavement leave available from ‘day one’ on the job. A framework for new protections from dismissal for women whilst pregnant, whilst on maternity leave, and within six months of returning to work – except in specific circumstances – will also be established, which will benefit other family leavers too. Consultation on enhanced dismissal protections for pregnant women and new mothers remains open until 15 January 2026.

Families who experience pregnancy loss before 24 weeks will be entitled to protected bereavement leave, extending the protection which is already in place for those who suffer pregnancy loss after 24 weeks. Consultation on leave for bereavement including pregnancy loss also remains open until 15 January 2026.

Implementation:

April 2026

• ‘Day one’ right to paternity leave and parental leave

2027

• Bereavement leave
• Protections against dismissal for women returning from maternity leave, and some other family leavers

Gender pay gap obligations will be extended by a requirement to create ‘equality action plans’. Menopause action will be voluntary.

Implementation: Equality action plans voluntary from April 2026, mandatory from 2027

The ERB aims to refresh the employer/employee bargain, and contains a raft of provisions to reset relationships between employers and trade unions.

Changes include:

• simplified processes regulating trade union recognition and industrial action, 
• increased protection for members taking industrial action;
• increased rights for trade union representatives;
• trade unions being able to request physical and digital access to workplace for specified purposes;
• retrospective protection might apply to ‘wildcat’ strikes; and 
• minimum service level legislation will be repealed. 

Implementation

On Royal Assent of ERB:

• Repeal of the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023

2026

• Consultations close on 18 December on the duty to inform workers of right to join a union and trade union rights of access to workplaces (36-page / 539KB PDF)
• A further ERB consultation on a new draft code of practice on electronic and workplace balloting for statutory union ballots closes on 28 January 2026
• Consultation on simplifying trade union recognition processes and new trade union codes of practice
• Consultation on protection against detriments for taking industrial action and blacklisting

Two months from Royal Assent of ERB

• Requirement for a simple majority of those voting for industrial action for ballot to be successful
• Information a trade union must include on ballot paper will revert to the simpler form pre-Trade Union Act 2016
• Reduction in notice a trade union must give employer of industrial action after ballot, from 14 to 10 days
• Extension of legal mandate period for industrial action, from six months to 12 months
• Repeal of requirements around trade union supervision of pickets
• Protections against dismissal for taking industrial action

April 2026

• Workplace electronic balloting introduced
• Simplified mechanisms for trade union recognition

October 2026

• Workers to be informed of their right to join a trade union
• Extended rights for trade union representatives
• Extended detriment protection to industrial action
• Introduction of trade union access agreements
• Fair Pay Agreements process established in the adult social care sector

2027

• Extension of blacklisting protection

The ERB will strengthen statutory sick pay (SSP) by removing the lower earnings limit. Lower-wage employees, including those earning below the lower earnings limit of £123 average weekly earnings, will be entitled to sick pay of 80% of their wages. The waiting period will also be removed, so that SSP becomes payable from day one of absence.

Implementation: April 2026

A single enforcement body, to be known as the Fair Work Agency, will be established, with a view to strengthening the enforcement of workplace rights.

The ERB provides for new powers to be given to the government to introduce regulations to create a new adult social care negotiating body, which itself could be given powers to intervene on matters to do with the remuneration, and wider terms and conditions, of social workers.

A consultation on the fair pay agreement process in adult social care closes on 16 January 2026.

Implementation: Autumn 2026

Separate to the ERB process, the government has consulted on ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting. It wants to adopt a similar reporting framework for ethnicity and disability pay gaps to that which is currently in place for gender. This would include the same six pay gap measures, including mean and median differences in average hourly pay.

Implementation:

2026

• Publication of Equality (Race and Disability) Bill
• EU pay transparency rules come into effect

We await clarification of the government’s intentions around introducing a single employment status, as trailed in its pre-election Plan to Make Work Pay (24-page / 248KB PDF).

• 26 ERB and related employment reform consultations are anticipated
• Equality (Race and Disability) Bill to be published