Employment Rights 2025 – Timeline

Employment Rights Act 2025 –  implementation timeline

The Employments Right Bill has been passed by both Houses and is expected to become law before the end of 2025

At Royal Assent or shortly thereafter:

• Trade unions: Repeal the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023
• Repeal the majority of Trade Union Act 2016
• Protections against dismissal for taking industrial action
• Removal of the ten-year ballot requirement for trade union political funds.
• Simplifying industrial action notices and industrial action ballot notices.

April 2026

• Simplifying trade union recognition process
• Electronic and workplace balloting
• Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) from day one of sickness and start of employment
• Remove Lower Earnings Limit (LEL).
• Maximum period of collective redundancy protective award doubled to 180 days
• Paternity leave becomes a day-one right
• Unpaid parental leave becomes a day-one right
• Whistleblowing (measures not specified in roadmap, however, reports of sexual harassment will become protected disclosures under clause 22 of the ERB)
• Establishment of the Fair Work Agency (FWA).
• Voluntary gender pay gap and menopause action plan publication

October 2026

• Duty to inform workers of their right to join a trade union
• Strengthen trade unions’ rights of access
• New rights and protections for trade union reps
• Extending protections against detriments for taking industrial action
• Restrict use of fire and rehire
• Extending the time limit to bring tribunal claims from three months to six months
• Fair pay agreement adult social care negotiating body
• Tipping
• Requirement for employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment
• New provision requiring employers to not permit harassment from a third party (such as a client or customer).

2027

• Strengthening protections against blacklisting.
• Collective redundancy – collective consultation threshold (new test)
• Introduction of a power to enable regulations to specify steps that are to be regarded as “reasonable”, to determine whether an employer has taken all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment.
• Change the two-year unfair dismissal qualifying period to a six-month period.
• Give zero-hours and ‘low-hours’ workers a right to a guaranteed hours contract which reflect the hours they regularly work
• Make flexible working a default day-one right (apart from when it is not reasonably feasible).
• Gender pay gap and menopause action plan publication to become mandatory
• Making it unlawful to dismiss a woman, while pregnant, on maternity leave and within six months of returning to work (with some exceptions)
• Introduction of a day-one right to at least one week of bereavement leave for employees
• Industrial relations framework
• Regulation of umbrella companies.