The Employment Rights Act: what changes, and when
The biggest rewrite of UK employment law in a generation is arriving in stages, not at once. Here is the dated map — what is law today, what lands in October 2026 and January 2027, and the 2027 zero-hours regime — with the preparation each stage actually needs.
These are law today. If your policies still describe the old rules, they are wrong now, not soon.
Statutory Sick Pay: day one, no earnings floor
Waiting days and the Lower Earnings Limit are gone. SSP runs from the first working day of sickness at the lower of £123.25 or 80% of average weekly earnings.
Prepare: Update sickness policies and payroll logic — and budget for higher short-absence cost in rota-heavy teams.
Day-one paternity leave and unpaid parental leave
The qualifying-service requirements were removed for leave starting on or after 6 April 2026.
Prepare: Remove length-of-service gates from family-leave policies and manager guidance.
Bereaved partners’ paternity leave
Up to 52 weeks of leave for a bereaved partner, in the tragic case of the mother’s death.
Prepare: Rare but sensitive — make sure HR knows the entitlement exists before it is ever needed.
Collective redundancy: protective award doubled
The maximum protective award for consultation failures doubled from 90 to up to 180 days’ pay per employee.
Prepare: Treat 20+ proposed redundancies at one establishment as a board-level compliance event.
Whistleblowing protection for sexual harassment disclosures
Reporting sexual harassment is explicitly a protected disclosure.
Prepare: Update whistleblowing and grievance policies to reflect the protected route.
Fair Work Agency established (7 April 2026)
A single enforcement body bringing together minimum wage, agency and related enforcement.
Prepare: Expect more joined-up enforcement — holiday pay and NMW records need to be inspection-ready.
Menopause guidance and voluntary action plans; simplified union recognition
Voluntary in 2026 — menopause action plans become mandatory for large employers in 2027.
Prepare: Large employers: start the voluntary plan now so 2027 is a formality.
Roughly three months away. These need policy work in the summer, not a scramble in September.
Harassment: employer duty tightens
Regulations specifying the “reasonable steps” employers must take to prevent sexual harassment.
Prepare: Risk-assess, train, and document — a poster is not “reasonable steps”.
Tipping: consult staff before setting the policy
Employers must consult workers when creating or updating a tipping allocation policy.
Prepare: Hospitality and retail: diarise the consultation before October.
Trade union measures; Fair Pay Agreement body for adult social care; procurement two-tier code
A package of collective-rights changes lands together.
Prepare: Sector-specific — social care and public-sector suppliers should read the detail.
The date most SMB employers should circle.
Unfair dismissal: qualifying period drops to 6 months
For dismissals from 1 January 2027, protection starts at six months’ service (down from two years) — and the compensatory award cap is removed. Note: the original day-one proposal became a six-month qualifying period in the final Act.
Prepare: Probation discipline becomes real: structured reviews, documented decisions, and dismissals before month six where it isn’t working. “We’ll see how year one goes” stops being a safe plan.
Fire-and-rehire protections
Dismissing staff to re-engage them on worse terms becomes automatically unfair in most cases.
Prepare: Contract-change programmes need genuine consultation and agreement, not ultimatums.
The zero-hours regime — the biggest operational change for shift-based businesses. Consultation on the detail opened 2 June 2026.
Right to guaranteed hours
Qualifying zero- and low-hours workers must be offered guaranteed hours reflecting what they actually worked over a reference period.
Prepare: Start measuring now: if someone has worked steady hours for months, expect to offer them that pattern. Clean rota and time-and-attendance data is the whole game.
Reasonable notice of shifts + short-notice cancellation payments
Workers get a right to reasonable notice of shifts, and payment when shifts are cancelled or cut short at short notice.
Prepare: Late rota publication becomes a direct cost. Publish rotas early and track every late change.
Also in 2027
Bereavement leave (including pregnancy loss), mandatory menopause action plans for large employers, stronger dismissal protection for pregnant employees and new mothers, umbrella-company regulation, and NDA restrictions in harassment and discrimination cases.
Prepare: Policy-refresh territory — schedule one consolidated review rather than seven small ones.
Source: GOV.UK, Plan to Make Work Pay and Employment Rights Act — timeline update (updated 15 April 2026), checked 5 July 2026. Later-2027 measures depend on regulations still in consultation — dates can move; we update this page when they do.
The questions every employer is asking
Is unfair dismissal becoming a day-one right?
No. The original proposal was day-one protection, but the Employment Rights Act 2025 as passed reduces the qualifying period from two years to six months, for dismissals from 1 January 2027 — alongside removal of the compensatory award cap. Six months of service is the new line, so probation management is where the compliance work lives.
What is already in force right now?
Since 6 April 2026: day-one SSP with no Lower Earnings Limit, day-one paternity and unpaid parental leave, bereaved partners’ paternity leave, the doubled collective-redundancy protective award, whistleblowing protection for sexual harassment disclosures, and voluntary menopause action plans. The Fair Work Agency opened on 7 April 2026.
When do the zero-hours contract rules actually start?
The right to guaranteed hours, reasonable notice of shifts, and short-notice cancellation payments are scheduled for 2027 (after the January 2027 tranche). The government consultation on the detailed design opened on 2 June 2026, so the precise mechanics — reference periods, thresholds, payment levels — are still being finalised. What is certain: they will be driven by records of hours actually worked.
Does the Act ban zero-hours contracts?
No. Zero-hours arrangements remain lawful — but qualifying workers gain the right to be offered guaranteed hours matching their real working pattern, plus shift-notice and cancellation-payment rights. It ends one-sided flexibility rather than the contract form itself.
What should a shift-based business do first?
Get rota and time-and-attendance data clean and historical — guaranteed-hours offers will be calculated from actual hours worked over a reference period, and cancellation payments from rota changes. Then fix probation discipline before January 2027, and put tipping consultation and harassment risk assessments on the calendar for October 2026.
The 2027 zero-hours rules will be won or lost on rota data.
Blankitt HR already runs rotas, time & attendance and day-one SSP under the reformed rules — so the records the guaranteed-hours regime needs are the ones you are already keeping.