Employment Rights Act 2025: What Has Already Changed and What Lands This Autumn

The Employment Rights Act 2025 is the largest package of employment law reform in decades, and it is not landing all at once. It is being commenced in stages across 2026 and 2027, which means an employer can be fully compliant one month and behind the following month. This article sets out what is already in force, what is coming, and which of your documents each wave touches. It is general information, not legal advice.

Already in force

18 December 2025 — Royal Assent

The Act passed and the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 was repealed.

18 February 2026

• Notice required for industrial action reduced from 14 days to 10
• Political fund ballot requirements removed
• Eligibility for paternity leave and unpaid parental leave became a day-one matter

6 April 2026

• Paternity leave is a day-one right. No qualifying service.
• Statutory Sick Pay is payable from the first qualifying day of illness — the three waiting days are gone.
• The Lower Earnings Limit for SSP was removed, bringing lower-paid employees into scope.
• Maximum protective awards doubled to 180 days’ pay where an employer fails to consult properly on collective redundancies.

The National Minimum Wage also rose on 1 April 2026, with the rate for workers aged 21 and over going to £12.71 an hour.

If your employment contract or staff handbook still describes SSP waiting days or a service requirement for paternity leave, those passages are now wrong.

Coming next

By 31 August 2026

Electronic and workplace balloting is introduced for statutory trade union ballots. Chiefly a concern for unionised workplaces.

1 October 2026

Employment tribunal time limits extend from three months to six months for most claims. This doubles the window in which a former employee can bring a claim, and it has a quiet practical effect: documentation needs to be retained and retrievable for materially longer. Exit paperwork, including any settlement agreement, should be filed on the assumption it may be scrutinised well after the person has left.

30 October 2026

• The sexual harassment duty is strengthened — employers must take all reasonable steps to prevent it, a higher bar than the current “reasonable steps”.
• Third-party harassment is covered, meaning harassment by customers, clients and members of the public falls within the employer’s responsibility.
• Trade union access rights are enhanced, including a duty to inform workers of their right to join a union and rights of access to workplaces.

“All reasonable steps” is an evidential test. In practice it is met with a written policy, delivered training, a functioning reporting route and a documented risk assessment — and it is judged on what you can show, not what you intended.

1 January 2027 — the big one

• The unfair dismissal qualifying period falls from two years to six months.
• The statutory cap on the compensatory award for unfair dismissal is removed.
• “Fire and rehire” dismissals become automatically unfair.

Taken together these substantially change the economics of dismissal. A shorter qualifying period plus an uncapped award means probation management, documented performance processes and a properly drafted contract stop being administrative hygiene and start being risk control. Review the probation, notice and disciplinary provisions in your full-time, part-time and fixed-term contracts before the end of the year.

During 2027 — dates still to be confirmed

• Zero hours contracts: rights to guaranteed hours, reasonable notice of shifts, and payment for cancelled shifts. Directly relevant to any zero hours contract or casual worker agreement.
• Flexible working: a statutory consultation requirement before a request can be refused.
• Gender equality and menopause action plans become mandatory for larger employers.
• Non-disclosure agreements: regulations to prevent their misuse in harassment and discrimination cases.
• Umbrella companies brought into regulation.
• Collective redundancy consultation thresholds assessed across the organisation rather than per establishment.

The NDA reform is worth watching now

The Act makes void any clause in an agreement between an employer and a worker to the extent that it prevents the worker disclosing relevant harassment or discrimination — or disclosing how the employer responded to it. Regulations will define narrow “excepted agreements” where confidentiality can still apply, expected to require independent legal advice, written and informed consent from the worker, and a cooling-off period.

The measures are expected to take effect in 2027 and are not retrospective, so existing agreements are not rewritten. But confidentiality drafting in settlement agreements is heading for a real change, and blanket wording will not survive it. Ordinary commercial confidentiality — protecting trade secrets, client lists and know-how under a mutual NDA, a one-way NDA or an employee confidentiality agreement — is not the target of the reform.

A short checklist for employers

1. Correct any contract or handbook wording on SSP waiting days and paternity leave qualifying service — both are already wrong.
2. Extend document retention to cover the six-month tribunal window from October.
3. Get the anti-harassment policy, training record and reporting route in place before 30 October.
4. Review probation and dismissal procedures before January 2027.
5. Revisit zero hours and casual arrangements ahead of the guaranteed-hours rules.

Summary

Day-one paternity leave and first-day sick pay are already law. Tribunal time limits double on 1 October 2026, the strengthened harassment duty starts on 30 October 2026, and the unfair dismissal changes arrive on 1 January 2027. Contracts drafted before 2026 will contain statements that are no longer accurate. Working from a current template is the cheapest part of getting this right.