The government’s long-anticipated Employment Rights Bill, which is widely seen as the biggest shake-up in employment law for a generation, became law on 18 December 2025 and is now the Employment Rights Act 2025.
Changes have already started to come into force, although many key changes will not take effect until later in 2026 or even – as with the removal of the two-year service requirement for unfair dismissal claims – 2027. Employers need to consider not just when changes will happen but also what steps they should be taking now to prepare.
What are the proposed changes and when will they happen?
| Proposed Amendment | Current Law | Date expected to come into effect | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parental Leave | Unpaid parental leave will be available from day one of employment for eligible employees. | Eligible employees must have one year of continuous service. | 6 April 2026 |
| Paternity Leave
| Will be available from day one of employment. | Employees must be continuously employed for 26 weeks. | 6 April 2026 |
| Can be taken even after shared parental leave. | Employees lose any entitlement to paternity leave if they take shared parental leave. | 6 April 2026 | |
| Eligible employees will be able to take up to 52 weeks of unpaid Bereaved Partner’s Paternity Leave where the child’s primary carer dies before the child’s first birthday. Employees will be eligible from their first day of employment | This is not strictly a change under the ERA and is implemented by the Bereaved Partner’s Paternity Leave Regulations 2026. We include this here for completeness as this is a change to employment law on 6 April 2026. | 6 April 2026 | |
| Statutory Sick Pay (SSP)
| SSP will be payable from day one of sickness absence. | A day of incapacity for work must form part of a “period of incapacity for work”. This currently means any period of four or more consecutive days, each of which is a day of incapacity for work. | 6 April 2026 |
| Removal of lower earnings limit. | SSP is only payable if the employee earns not less than the lower earnings limit, currently £125 per week. | 6 April 2026 | |
| SSP will be the lower of the prescribed weekly rate and “the prescribed percentage of the employee’s normal weekly earnings”, which is to be set at 80% and will be set out in order. | SSP is paid at the prescribed weekly rate. | 6 April 2026 | |
| Sexual Harassment – Qualifying Disclosures | Sexual harassment will be a qualifying disclosure for whistleblowing purposes allowing an employee to report that sexual harassment has occurred, is occurring or is likely to occur. | Whilst the current list of protected disclosures includes any failure to comply with a legal obligation, sexual harassment is not listed as a specific example of this. | 6 April 2026 |
| Annual Leave | Employers must keep adequate records of annual leave entitlement, additional leave, leave and pay entitlements for irregular hours and part-year workers, and any payments in lieu of holiday, with these records retained for six years. | N/A (new proposal) | 6 April 2026 |
| Sexual Harassment
| Employers will be required to take “all reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment. The steps specified will be set out in regulations but will not be an exhaustive list. | The Worker Protection (Amendment to the Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 requires employers to take “reasonable steps”. | October 2026 |
| Third Party Harassment
| Employer liability for third-party harassment in relation to all relevant protected characteristics. | Employers are not currently liable for third parties’ harassment of their employees under the Equality Act 2010. | October 2026 |
| Tribunal Time Limits – extension | Increased time limit for all claims in the Employment Tribunal to six months (except for breach of contract claims arising or outstanding on termination of employment). | Most claims must be submitted within three months minus a day of the act complained of. | October 2026 |
| Fire and Rehire | It will be automatically unfair to dismiss an employee for refusing to agree to a “restricted variation” in their contract of employment, except in limited circumstances. | Not unlawful but should be a last resort. | 1 January 2027 |
| Unfair Dismissal
| Employees will have a right to claim unfair dismissal after six months. | Employees must have at least two years of continuous service to bring a claim for ‘ordinary’ unfair dismissal (with limited exceptions). | 1 January 2027 |
| Agency Workers
| Agency workers will have the right to guaranteed hours contracts, reasonable notice of shifts and compensation for short notice changes to shifts. Provisions will set out who has responsibility for these, i.e. the hirer or agency. | N/A (new proposal) | 2027 |
| Bereavement Leave | An entitlement to more general bereavement leave, which applies to the loss of a wider group of persons. Includes stillbirth or pregnancy loss in the first 24 weeks of pregnancy. | No statutory right to bereavement leave unless an employee’s child dies under the age of 18 or is stillborn after 24 weeks. In this case, there is an entitlement to a minimum period of two weeks of paid leave. | 2027 |
| Family leave and pregnancy – enhanced protection from dismissal | Enhanced protection in relation to redundancy during or after a protected period of pregnancy and maternity, will be amended so that regulations may also make provision about dismissal for any other reason during the same period. Enhanced protection from dismissal after a period of statutory family leave such as adoption leave and shared parental leave. | Enhanced protection against redundancy dismissals only (the redundancy protected period during pregnancy and maternity starts when an employee tells their employer that they are pregnant and ends 18 months from the date the baby is born). | 2027 |
| Flexible Working | Employers will only be able to rely on one of the eight statutory reasons to refuse a flexible working request where it is “reasonable” to do so. | No requirement for the employer to show that it was “reasonable” to refuse a flexible working request, so long as it can show that at least one of the eight statutory reasons for refusing the request applies. | 2027 |
| A defined consultation process will be introduced, and employers will be required to explain why they consider it reasonable to refuse the application. | An employer must deal with a statutory application for flexible working in a ‘reasonable manner’. | 2027 | |
| Zero Hours and “Low Hours” Contracts | Qualifying workers will be entitled to the following:
| Zero hours contracts are permitted but cannot prevent workers from working elsewhere. There is no right to predictable working patterns, shift notice or compensation. | 2027 |
| Non-Disclosure Agreements | An employer will be unable to include any provision in a contract between an employer and a worker, including a settlement agreement, that attempts to prevent the worker from making allegations or disclosures about harassment or discrimination. This does not apply to allegations of failure to make reasonable adjustments. | N/A (new proposal) | TBC |
| Working Time Regulations – record keeping
| New obligations on employers to keep certain records relating to compliance with annual leave and pay for annual leave. | N/A (new proposal) | TBC |
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