The Employment Rights Act 2025 (c. 36) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that alters UK labour law. In 2021, the Labour Party conference launched a New Deal for Working People that pledged to bring the UK up to international standards, including measures to "ban zero hours contracts", enable workers to claim employment rights on "day one", "outlaw fire and rehire", create a "single status of worker" to protect everyone who works, "establish Fair Pay Agreements across the economy", and create a "single enforcement body", the Fair Work Agency, properly funded to "enforce workers' rights".Labour, Green Paper, New Deal for Working People (September 2022)
As the 2024 election approached, Labour changed its pledges to a reduced package of reforms in Labour's Plan to Make Work Pay.Labour's Plan to Make Work Pay: Delivering A New Deal for Working People (June 2024) In particular it postponed the "single worker status" pledge into consultation, and promised only to start a fair pay agreement in adult social care (not all sectors).See also E McGaughey, 'Employment Rights Bill: briefing on 12 key reforms, recommended amendments, and 3 further policies' (2025) ssrn.com After the election it reduced its commitments further.UK Government, Next Steps to Make Work Pay (October 2024)
In the act, the rights that were pledged were reduced so that the main provisions of the law included the following: a limit to zero hours contracts (ss. 1–8), but with major potential exemptions, particularly for the employment agency industry (Sch 1); reduction of the qualifying period for unfair dismissal to 6 months (s. 25 and Sch 3), not to "day one"; restricting the practice of "fire and rehire" (ss. 29–31), but not ban them in cases where employers argue they are in financial difficulty; creating a Fair Work Agency which can enforce certain offences and wrongs, and civil wrongs if workers' do not litigate, in the ERA 1996 and TULRCA 1992.
Background
UK political history In the United Kingdom, most of the latest major employment laws were passed in the 1980s, and recast in the Employment Rights Act 1996 and Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. The Conservative governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major reduced the rights of unions to collectively bargain, restricting industrial action and picketing. The Labour Party led by Neil Kinnock pledged to repeal the Tory laws and replace them with a "Charter of Rights" for workers, such as union representation and secondary picketing. However, Tony Blair scrapped these pledges, promising to keep the law "the most restrictive on trade unions in the Western world".Tony Blair, 'We won't look back to the 1970s' (31 March 1997) The Times, 'The essential elements of the trade union legislation of the 1980s will remain. There will be no return to secondary action, flying pickets, strikes without ballots, the closed shop and all the rest. The changes that we do propose would leave British law the most restrictive on trade unions in the Western world. The scenes from Wapping, Grunwick or the miners' strike could no more happen under our proposals than under the existing laws.' It instead restored only minimal rights such as a national minimum wage, and limited parental leave. When they returned to power after 2010, the Conservatives raised unfair dismissal qualification, imposed fees for Employment Tribunals, and scrapped a public sector equality duty. After the 2015 election, the Conservatives introduced the Trade Union Act 2016 and the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023. These laws introduced further restrictions on trade unions, particularly their finances and their administrative structures, and also enabled the government to set minimum service levels in cases where strike action occurred in key sectors. These laws have been criticised as among the harshest in Europe and the wider developed world and have been credited with leading to a fall in trade union membership and a reduction of workers' rights in the UK since the 1980s.
European developments In 2015, the Labour Party shifted back to the left with the election of Jeremy Corbyn as its leader. Under Corbyn, the party pledged to repeal the Trade Union Act 2016 as well as earlier Conservative laws. However, Labour lost the 2017 and 2019 elections. Under a new Boris Johnson government, the UK left the European Union in early 2020. The UK–EU Trade and Accession Agreement committed the UK to not reduce employment rights protection in a way that affected trade, but did not prevent the UK from falling further behind EU labour rights standards. Without the UK's presence, the EU passed the Adequate Minimum Wage Directive 2022 which requires member states to have an action plan to achieve 80% or more coverage in collective bargaining (most countries do so through sector collective bargaining). It also passed the Platform Work Directive 2024 where article 4 requires that worker status is determined according to law, not the terms of contracts (usually written by employers), which is already the situation in UK labour law, as determined by court cases such as Autoclenz Ltd v Belcher UKSC 41.
New Deal for Working People Under a new leadership of Keir Starmer, in 2021 the Labour party launched a green paper, the New Deal for Working People.New Deal for Working People (2021) This provided the framework for a new Employment Rights Bill which the party would introduce if it returned to power. Proposals included the repeal of Conservative anti-trade union legislation, a ban on fire and rehire and zero-hour contracts, the introduction of a single legal status for all workers except for those who are self-employed, and provisions which would enable collective bargaining to settle pay disputes across all economic sectors.
Make Work Pay As the 2024 election drew nearer Labour's pledges for the bill under Starmer were reduced in a new "Plan to Make Work Pay", to appear business-friendly. The revamped proposals limited the repeal of anti-trade union legislation to the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 and most, but not all, of the Trade Union Act 2016, while pledges to ban zero-hour contracts and fire and rehire were replaced with promises to introduce restrictions and a minimum hour guarantee. The single legal status for workers was also removed, while collective bargaining was limited to the adult social care and school support staff sectors. The Plan to Make Work Pay was included in Labour's manifesto for the 2024 general election.
Parliamentary passage In the King's Speech at the 2024 State Opening of Parliament, it was confirmed that the government would introduce the Employment Rights Bill to Parliament within its first 100 days in office, with revived commitments to ban fire and rehire and "exploitative" zero-hour contracts. Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner was given oversight over the contents of the bill and its implementation, with business secretary Jonathan Reynolds tasked with leading the bill's passage through Parliament.
Reynolds introduced the bill for its first reading in the House of Commons on 10 October 2024, which was followed by the publication of the draft bill and a government white paper, Next Steps to Make Work Pay, which explained the government's plans for the bill and its implementation.
In November 2025, the government had to defend their decision to reduce instead of abolish the qualifying period for a worker to claim that they had been sacked unfairly.
Contents
The government stated that the Employment Rights Bill aimed to modernise industrial relations and strengthen employment law enforcement. Its plan to Make Work Pay was seen as one of the main elements of the government's five missions to grow the economy, by improving productivity and employment. The bill repealed the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023, the Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Act 2023 and most, but not all, of the Trade Union Act 2016. It also amended the Seafarers Wages Act 2023, Procurement Act 2023, Equality Act 2010, Employment Relations Act 1999, Employment Rights Act 1996 and Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.
Hours and pay The main provisions of the Employment Rights Act 2025 on pay and hours include the following:
a limit to zero hours contracts (ss. 1–8), but with major potential exemptions, particularly for the employment agency industry (Sch 1);Inserting ERA 1996 ss. 27BA–BZ3 requiring the employer's reasons for rejecting a right to request flexible work are reasonable (s. 9); reforms to statutory sick pay, including making it available from the first day of employment (ss. 10–13); new policies on allocating tips (s. 14).
Job security The ERA 2025's main provisions on job security are to:
reduce the qualifying period for unfair dismissal to 6 months (s. 25 and Sch 3), not to "day one";Amending ERA 1996 s 108, and omitting s 124, etc in Sch 3 restrict the practice of "fire and rehire" (ss. 28–31), but not ban it in cases where employers argue they are in "financial difficulties";Inserting ERA 1996 ss. 104I–K strengthen provisions for consultation before collective redundancy, including increasing the maximum protective for failure to consult from 90 to 180 days' pay.Amending TULRCA 1992 ss. 188, 193, 197 and 198A, and inserting 195A, etc
Equality The ERA 2025's main provisions on equality are to:
remove the qualifying periods for parental and paternity leave, so they are available like maternity leave from the first day of employment (ss. 15–16), but not changing the disparity between maternity and paternity which is a leading contributor to the gender pay gap; require employers take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment, make employers liable for harassment by third parties if they fail to take reasonable steps, and protect workers' disclosure of sexual harassment as whistleblowing (ss. 20–24); forbid dismissal during pregnancy or in a period after return from statutory family leave (ss. 26–27); create duties for employers with over 250 staff (around half the workforce) to publish "equality action plans" to address the gender pay gap, and include outsourced workers in the calculations of the pay gap (ss. 33–34);Inserting Equality Act 2010 s. 78A and amending ss. 78, 153 and 154 create facility time for equality representatives (s. 65).
Collective rights The ERA 2025's main provisions on collective rights are to:
require a "Fair Pay Agreement" in adult social care (ss. 39–55), and restoring a "School Support Staff Negotiating Body" (s. 38), but not requiring fair pay agreements in any other sector; create a duty on employers to give workers a written statement that they can join a trade union (s. 58), but not saying what is required in the statement until the Secretary of State drafts rules; restate a union's right to make an "access agreement" with an employer to publicise the union to workers with appeal to the Central Arbitration Committee in the case of a dispute (s. 59), but not to create an right of access; remove the 40% turnout threshold for unions to get recognition (s. 60 and Sch 6, para 19(3))Amending TULRCA 1992 Sch A1, para 29(3) but leaving the duty to bargain solely in enterprises (not across sectors), and on 'pay, hours and holidays' rather than all terms;TULRCA 1992 Sch A1, para 3(3) restate the power of the Secretary of State to introduce electronic ballots for union elections or industrial action (s. 73, and Employment Relations Act 2004 s. 54) but not actually requiring e-ballots begin; make minor updates to the right of workers to not detriment (s. 76), and an employee to not be unfairly dismissed for industrial action (s. 77), but does not extend the right to protection to all workers as international law requires;e.g. Wilson v UK ECHR 552