Employment Rights
Act 2025
Your essential guide to the changes and what you need to do to stay compliant.
The Employment Rights Act 2025 became law in December 2025. The Act will be implemented in stages, with the key changes coming into effect between 6 April 2026 and Autumn 2027. The impact will be a new employment law landscape.
This briefing outlines the 6 April 2026 changes, future key changes, the impact on employment contracts and handbooks and provides a summary of the full government implementation timeline for all key changes.
Changes effective 6 April 2026
- SSP payable from day one — no waiting days
- Lower earnings limit (LEL) removed
- New rate: lower of 80% AWE or £123.15/week
- Remove all ‘waiting days’ and/or LEL contract references
- Unpaid parental leave: day-one right
- Paternity leave (not pay): day-one right
- Whistleblowing: sexual harassment added as standalone ‘relevant failure’
- Bereaved Partners’ Paternity Leave (up to 52 weeks)
- Gender pay equality action plans (voluntary)
- Menopause guidance issued
- Collective redundancy protective award doubled: 90 → 180 days (uncapped)
- Trade union recognition process simplified
- Fair Work Agency established (7 April)
Future key changes
Employers will be required to take ‘all reasonable steps’ to prevent the sexual harassment of their employees, with the minimum requirements expected to be published in the course of 2027.
Protection from third party harassment will also apply — employers will be exposed to claims if employees are harassed by a third party in the course of their employment and they cannot show that they have taken all reasonable steps to prevent this. The obligation extends to all forms of harassment, not just sexual harassment.
- Conduct or amend risk assessments
- Revise training materials to include the new requirements
- Ensure appropriate measures are adopted following risk assessments (e.g. signs, provisions in contractual terms with customers)
- Amend relevant policies and procedures
Most employment tribunal claims must currently be lodged within 3 months. This time limit will be extended to 6 months.
An employee must make an Acas early conciliation application before making a claim to the employment tribunal. Provided an Acas early conciliation application is made within the employment tribunal time limit, Acas early conciliation ‘stops the clock’ and operates to extend the time limit for submission of the employment tribunal claim.
The maximum period of Acas early conciliation was extended from 6 weeks to 12 weeks in December 2025.
- Policies and procedures governing data retention should be reviewed to ensure they take into account both the extended period of Acas early conciliation and the extended time limit for bringing claims.
The qualifying period to bring an unfair dismissal claim will reduce from just under two years to 6 months, effective from 1 January 2027. Employees with at least 6 months’ service as at 1 January 2027 will be able to make a claim — service prior to January 2027 will count.
- By November 2026 — review the performance/conduct of all employees who will have accrued 6 months’ service by 1 January 2027
- Consider whether probationary periods should be shortened so decisions on new hires are made before they accrue the right to claim
- Consider adjusting qualifying periods for benefits (e.g. life assurance, PMI, income protection) dependent on satisfactory probationary period completion
- Reduce probationary periods to 3 months (with max 2-month extensions) in advance of the change
Restrictions on making certain changes to an employee’s terms and conditions will come into effect, along with protection from dismissal for refusing to agree to changes. Pre-existing contractual rights to make changes are permitted but introducing a right to make changes after January 2027 will be restricted. Dismissing an employee for refusing to agree to a ‘restricted variation’ will become automatically unfair (with limited exceptions). The risk is not limited to actual dismissal — it includes constructive dismissal.
- Review employment contracts well in advance of January 2027 to inject further flexibility where needed
- Where no pre-existing right to make changes exists, pay rises can be made conditional on agreeing to new terms — an effective way of circumventing the new rules
- Assess constructive dismissal risk before proposing or implementing any contractual changes
A right for qualifying workers on zero hours contracts to be offered guaranteed hours will be introduced, calculated using a set ‘reference period’ (duration yet to be determined). This creates difficulties if the reference period is an unusually busy period for an employer.
The worker does not have to accept the offer; and they don’t have to ask for this if they don’t want it. These changes are likely to have a significant impact on employers who engage workers on zero hours contracts and on employment businesses who supply temporary workers. A separate employment business-focused update will be issued later this year.
The Act will make it unlawful to dismiss pregnant women, mothers on maternity leave, and mothers who return to work for at least a 6-month period after they return, save for in specific circumstances. The consultation closed on 15 January 2025. The current ‘protection’ is limited to priority for alternative employment in a redundancy situation; the new provisions will prevent dismissal for a specified period and will be a significant reform.
The reforms do not introduce a right to work flexibly; they bolster the existing right to make a request to work flexibly by introducing a reasonableness test and a new consultation process. The existing eight business reasons for rejection will continue to apply but if an employer is considering rejecting a request, they must consult (following a process which will be finalised following conclusion and analysis of the consultation) and if they reject a request, they must explain why their decision is reasonable. The consultation process will close on 30 April 2026.
For more information see Flexible working factsheet
Employment contract updates
- Issue statement of changes
- Add right to join trade union notification (form TBC after consultation)
- Review contracts ahead of October changes
- Review & inject flexibility — fire & rehire/contractual change restrictions incoming
- Pre-existing rights to make changes will be preserved.
- Reduce probationary periods to 3 months (max 2-month extension)
Employee handbook updates
- Sickness absence policy — SSP day-one entitlement and no lower earnings limit
- Parental leave policy — day-one right
- Paternity leave policy — day-one right
- Bereaved Partners’ Paternity Leave policy (new)
- Whistleblowing policy — sexual harassment standalone
- Equality & diversity policy — gender pay action plans
- Menopause policy updated to reflect guidance
- Anti-harassment policy — ‘all reasonable steps’ duty
- Third-party harassment policy (new obligation)
- Data retention policy — 12-week ACAS + 6-month ET window
- Probationary period references — reduce to 3 months to align with contract changes
- Redundancy policy — collective consultation threshold
- Bereavement leave — pregnancy loss included
- Zero-hours / guaranteed hours policy (new)
- Maternity & pregnancy dismissal protections
- Flexible working policy & procedure amended
- Anti-harassment policy — ‘all reasonable steps’ duty — minimum steps added — obligation to consider additional steps to statutory minimum
- Harassment risk assessments required before Oct 2026
- Staff training on updated anti-harassment obligations
- Measures from risk assessments: signage, customer contract terms
- Manager training on new day-one entitlements
Full implementation timeline
The first roadmap for implementation was issued by the Government in July 2025. The Government has now published an updated implementation timeline for the key changes. The timeline as at the date of issue is as follows: