Employment Rights Act: implementation for UK employers in 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The government’s original proposal to bring in ‘day one’ rights for unfair dismissal has been replaced by a six-month qualifying period for unfair dismissal.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.

The cap on unfair dismissal will be removed at the same time. The impact for high earners and employers is significant.

Implementation: Confirmed as 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:

2026

• Consultation on improving access to flexible working sets out a proposed process which much take place before a flexible working request is rejected. Closes on 1 April 2026

2027

• New framework takes effect

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.

A consultation on the application of zero hours contracts measures to agency workers closed on 2 December 2024.

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.

A consultation on collective redundancy and fire and rehire closed on 2 December 2024.

Implementation

2026

• Consultation on scope of "restricted variations" closes 1 April 2026

January 2027

• Fire and rehire protections apply (start date pushed back from 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.

A consultation on collective redundancy and fire and rehire closed on 2 December 2024.

Implementation: January 2027 (TBC but start date likely pushed back from October 2026 in line with other provisions around fire and rehire)

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

April 2026

• Amendments to whistleblowing protections to specifically include harassment complaints

October 2026

• Duty to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment comes into force
• Obligation on employers to prevent harassment - including sexual harassment and harassment on grounds of all protected characteristics - comes into force

2027

• New regulations to specify what the requirement to take ‘all reasonable steps’ to prevent harassment looks like in practice for employers

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. A consultation on enhanced dismissal protections for pregnant women and new mothers closed on 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. A consultation on leave for bereavement including pregnancy loss closed on 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.

A consultation on creating a modern framework for industrial relations closed on 2 December 2024. The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 was repealed on 18 December 2025, on Royal Assent of the ERA.

Implementation

2025-26

• Consultations closed 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)
• Consultation on a new draft code of practice on electronic and workplace balloting for statutory union ballots closed on 28 January 2026
• A consultation on the code of practice on access and unfair practices and unfair practices in electronic balloting closes on 1 April 2026
• Consultation on simplifying trade union recognition processes
• Consultation on protection against detriments for taking industrial action and blacklisting

18 February 2026

• Removal of the rule that, in ballots involving important public services, at least 40% of all eligible voters must vote in favour of industrial action
• Information a trade union must include on ballot papers, notice of ballots, ballot results and industrial action notices 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
• Political fund opt-out and 10-year ballot repealed
• Public sector check-off and facility time obligations repealed

April 2026

• Simplified mechanisms for trade union recognition

August 2026

• Electronic balloting for industrial action introduced
• Repeal of the 50% industrial action ballot turnout threshold

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
• Prohibition on unfair practices extended to the entire recognition or derecognition process
• Fair Pay Agreements process established in the adult social care sector

2027

• Extension of blacklisting protection
• Electronic balloting for recognition and derecognition ballots
• Introduction of a ‘new industrial relations framework’

The ERA 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.

A consultation on strengthening SSP closed on 4 December 2024.

Implementation

April 2026

• All SSP reforms take effect

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.

Implementation

April 2026

• Fair Work Agency to be established

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 closed on 16 January 2026.

Implementation

Autumn 2026

• New fair pay agreement process in adult social care takes effect

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.

The consultation on mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting closed on 10 June 2025.

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