Employment Rights Act 2025
The Employment Rights Act 2025 brings the most significant changes to employment law in decades.
The changes will be implemented during 2026 and 2027. A number of the changes to employee rights will be effective from 6 April 2026. This page has been created to support our members to prepare and implement the changes and ensure the right policies and procedures are in place.
We have also created an Employment Rights Act network on MS Teams to share ideas, resources and help each other through the implementation. Please email hr@evh.org.uk if you would like to join.
Significant changes within the Employment Rights Act 2025 include;
- Unfair dismissal - Employees will have the right to claim unfair dismissal after 6 months of employment rather than 2 years.
- Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) - Employees will receive SSP from day 1 of sickness rather than day 4. In addition, the lower earnings limit will be removed.
- Paternity Leave - Employees will be entitled to take paternity leave from day one of employment (removing the 26 weeks service requirement). Statutory paternity pay will still require 26 weeks service to qualify.
- Unpaid Parental Leave - Employees will be entitled to unpaid parental leave from day one of employment.
- Bereaved Partner's Paternity Leave - A new entitlement that allows an employee to take up to 52 weeks unpaid paternity leave.
- Whistleblowing - Sexual harassment will become a qualifying disclosure under whistleblowing law.
- Sexual harassment - Employers will be required to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment.
Please find a timeline and checklist under the Downloads section which provides more detail about the changes that are coming into force and when.