The State of UK Employment 2026
Three interactive tools, one picture of the year UK employment law changed for good. Calculate your tribunal exposure, track every Employment Rights Act 2025 change, and see where insecure work is concentrated. Built from official data. Free to use, cite and embed.
£53,403
Average sex discrimination award
95,900
Tribunal claims in 2023/24
76%
Claims settled before hearing
1.23m
Workers on zero hours contracts
Why this matters now
2026 is the year the cost of getting employment wrong stepped up. Tribunal claims are rising, discrimination awards are uncapped and far higher than most employers assume, and the Employment Rights Act 2025 is rolling out the biggest set of changes in a generation between now and 2027.
We pulled the official numbers from the Ministry of Justice, the ONS and ACAS and turned them into tools you can actually use. Pick a tab and start with your own sector.
The figure most sites get wrong
The average successful sex discrimination award is £53,403, nearly three times the ~£18,000 most guides quote.
Discrimination awards are uncapped. The single largest tribunal award in 2023/24 reached £995,000. Across the year there were 95,900 employment tribunal claims (+11.6% year on year), and 76% settled before a hearing.
Estimate your exposure
Three inputs. Results update live.
Optional. Casual and zero hours workers drive deductions, holiday pay and working time claims.
Your estimated annual tribunal exposure
£0
Based on accommodation and food services claim rates of 14.8 claims per 1,000 employees, 50 staff and a 10% casual mix. Roughly 0.8 expected claims a year at a blended £9,380 per claim.
How your sector compares to the UK average
1.9x the national averageWhat drives risk in accommodation and food services
- High zero hours exposure (32.2%)
- High staff turnover
- Young, transient workforce
Most common claim type in this sector: Unauthorised deductions.
Average and maximum award by claim type
Mean successful award, 2023/24 Ministry of Justice data. Discrimination awards are uncapped.
Orange bars are uncapped discrimination claims. Teal bars are capped or statutory claims. Median awards are lower: the mean is pulled up by a long tail of very large awards.
Cite or embed this research
Journalists, HR teams and advisers are welcome to use this data. Copy a citation or drop the dashboard straight into your article.
Cite this research
EmployerKit (2026) The State of UK Employment 2026. Available at: https://employerkit.com/state-of-uk-employment-2026 (Accessed: 8 June 2026).Embed this dashboard
<iframe src="https://employerkit.com/state-of-uk-employment-2026/embed" width="100%" height="900" style="border:0;border-radius:12px" title="The State of UK Employment 2026 by EmployerKit" loading="lazy"></iframe>Related EmployerKit guides
Zero Hours Contracts in the UK
Full sector breakdown and what changes under the right to guaranteed hours.
UK Employment Tribunal Data
Claims by type, five-year trend and average awards from MoJ data.
Tribunal Cost Calculator
Model the basic and compensatory award for a specific claim against your business.
Methodology and sources
All figures are drawn from official UK sources and shown with their dataset and year. The tribunal risk calculator is an estimate: it scales published sector claim rates to your headcount and contract mix and applies a blended cost per claim derived from MoJ award data and ACAS settlement rates. It is a planning aid, not legal advice.
- Tribunal claims and awards: Ministry of Justice Tribunals Statistics (2023/24 and Q1 2024/25 bulletin). 95,900 claims; average sex discrimination award £53,403; maximum award ~£995,000.
- Settlement rate: ACAS Early Conciliation Statistics 2023/24. 76% of claims settle before a hearing.
- Zero hours contracts: ONS EMP17 (February 2026 release). 1.23 million workers, record high Oct to Dec 2025.
- Employment Rights Act 2025: GOV.UK implementation roadmap and ACAS guidance.
Some sector-level zero hours figures beyond hospitality and health are ONS EMP17 estimates not separately verified from public summaries, and are marked as such in the tool. ONS does not publish a clean comparable percentage of workforce on zero hours by region, so we show the more reliable sector measure. Last updated 2026-06-06.
Find the gaps before a claim does
An EmployerKit audit checks your contracts and policies against the changes above and flags where you are exposed.
EmployerKit Audit from £49