It has been a while coming, but the Employment Rights Bill finally received Royal Assent on 18 December and for better or worse is now a fully-fledged Act of Parliament, the Employment Rights Act 2025.
It is fair to say that getting this Act over the line was not straightforward for the government, with much ink (and government credibility) already spilled over the extensive ping-ponging between the House of Lords and the House of Commons to try and reach a deal.
When it was first published, the Bill amounted to 158 pages. The Act itself has ballooned to over 300 pages – and this is only the framework on which the government will hang the significant changes to our employment laws. There is an awful lot of secondary legislation still to come that will set out much of the detail on how these changes are intended to work.
In short, there will be a huge amount of work for employers to do to prepare for the changes (and potentially significant cost, as per the government’s latest impact assessment published on 7 January 2026). The good news is that not all the changes will come into force at once (for the full proposed timeline, please see our visual roadmap below highlighting the key dates to be aware of).
To assist with your strategic planning, we are producing a series of quick guides to the changes, based on the implementation dates. In our first edition, we focus on the first key tranche of changes due to come into effect in April 2026, as preparing for these changes should be on your “To Do” list now. Fortunately for employers, most of the provisions that are coming into force then will simply require tweaks to existing policies and procedures rather than substantial changes to processes, etc.
Watch out for the next instalment as this will cover some of the bigger changes, such as the change in the unfair dismissal qualifying period from two years to six months, as well as the removal of the cap on the compensatory award. Although these changes are not due to come into effect until January 2027, employers should be reviewing their recruitment procedures and training their managers throughout Q2 to be ready for them.
For an overview of the numerous changes under the Employment Rights Act, please refer to our updated At a Glance Guide. We have produced a separate snapshot guide setting out further details on the trade union changes.
Resources
View the Implementation Roadmap (PDF)
Your Checklist for April 2026 (PDF)
View Our Updated ERA 2025 ‘At A Glance Guide’ (PDF)
View Our ‘Trade Union Changes Guide’ (PDF)
How We Can Help
We can support you in relation to all aspects of your preparation for implementation of the Employment Rights Act 2025, including as follows:
Board level advice and training – As can be seen from our Checklist for April 2026, in the short-term many of the changes require amendments to policies, contracts, procedures and working practices. However, our recommendation is that the Board considers the changes holistically rather than simply dealing with them piecemeal or reactively as they come into effect. The Act will make fundamental changes to the employment law landscape in the UK and will impact all employers. The extent of the impact will depend on a number of factors, including the size of your workforce, the sector in which you operate, the types of individuals who work in your business, levels of staff turnover, the processes and procedures you already have in place and how generous your current terms and conditions of employment are, etc. In particular, employers will need to consider any new senior hires carefully given the decrease in the qualifying period from two years to six months and the removal of the compensation cap, which will have a significant impact on an employer’s ability to exit such staff and reach a reasonable settlement after that time. We are working with various employers to triage the key changes and to help them plan their strategy to mitigate the impacts of the Act. Please get in touch if this would be of interest.
Management training – Given the huge increase in rights available to employees and also the increased sums they might expect to be awarded in the employment tribunal, there will be significant onus on managers to follow processes properly – from disciplinaries, to grievances, capability and redundancy processes, and so on. We have a comprehensive suite of training options available which can be tailored for your management team, and watch out for details of our 2026 webinar programme that aims to upskill your HR team and those individuals with line manager responsibility.
Contract and policy reviews – We can also advise on the various amendments that will be required to your policies and contracts as the changes come into effect.
If you would like to discuss the implications of the Act for your business, please speak to your usual Squire Patton Boggs contact.
