Employment Rights Act 2025: October 2026 implementation dates confirmed

The Government recently published an updated implementation timetable for the Act and employers and HR professionals need to be aware that a wide range of measures come into effect in October 2026. Understanding the imminent changes and their implications is crucial.

In our previous article, we provided an overview of the updated implementation timetable and considered the wide range of trade union measures coming into effect on 25 August and 30 October 2026.

In this article we consider the other significant changes taking effect in October 2026 and highlight two recent consultations relevant to the Act’s future developments.

October 2026 implementation

Extension of Employment Tribunal time limits

At the moment, most Employment Tribunal claims must be brought within three months but this time limit will be increased to six months on 1 October 2026.

It is important to be aware of the transitional provisions whereby the six months’ time limit will only apply where the “relevant date” is on or after 1 October 2026. The “relevant date” will be the date where the act or failure to act, to which the complaint relates, occurs on or after 1 October 2026. Where the complaint relates to a series of acts or failures to act, the extended time limit will only apply where the last of those acts or failures occurs on or after 1 October 2026.

Note that for breach of employment contract claims in Scotland the change will take place on 9 November 2026.

There is concern that extension of the time limit will have an impact on the number of Employment Tribunal claims and that the current backlog and pressure on Employment Tribunals will increase significantly. For more details see our previous article here.

Sexual harassment and harassment

A number of measures will take effect on 30 October 2026:

Employers will be required to take “all reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment of their employees during the course of their employment. This extends the 26 October 2024 preventative duty introduced under the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 which requires employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment. The consequence of failing to comply with the preventative duty is that, if there is a successful sexual harassment claim and compensation has been awarded, the Employment Tribunal must consider if and to what extent the employer has complied with the preventative duty. If it finds that the preventative duty has been breached, it may order a compensation uplift of up to 25%.
The current preventative duty also requires employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment by third parties such as clients, customers, service users and members of the public. This requirement will be extended to other protected characteristics (except marriage and civil partnership and pregnancy and maternity).
A power will be introduced enabling regulations to be made at a later date specifying what will be considered reasonable steps.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is updating its current Guidance on preventing harassment and sexual harassment at work. That Guidance makes it clear that there are no minimum standards and what is reasonable will vary from employer to employer. Whether or not an employer has taken reasonable steps is an objective test and will depend on factors such as the employer’s size and resources, the sector it operates in, the working environment and the risks, contact with and types of third parties.

Under the preventative duty, employers should have already carried out a risk assessment to consider the risks of sexual harassment and what steps to take to mitigate those risks to prevent it occurring. Any risk assessment needs to be reviewed to take account of the imminent extension of the preventative duty.

On 25 June 2026, the EHRC published a report about harassment at work and its findings include:

Workplaces are a common setting for harassment, particularly sexual harassment and specific sectors affected are financial and hospitality.
Hierarchical structures, male-dominated workforces, precarious job contracts, being on low wages and insecure job contracts are all risk factors.
Sexual harassment disproportionately affects women, those reporting a disability, young people and ethnic minorities.
Policies alone are not effective in decreasing harassment but are effective when they are implemented consistently and reviewed regularly.
Well-designed, effective training needs to be timely, repeated and tailored encouraging communication and debate.

Fair Pay Agreement Adult Social Care Negotiating Body

The Act provides that, through regulations, a new negotiating body will be set up representing 1.5 million care workers in England. The regulations to establish the Fair Pay Agreement Adult Social Care Negotiating Body are expected to be introduced in October 2026 but no date has been confirmed.

Between 30 September 2025 and 16 January 2026, the Government consulted on the design of the fair pay agreement process in England and it published its response on 16 July 2026. The negotiating body will be made up of trade unions and employers and they will negotiate on pay, terms and conditions and wider employment matters such as training and career progression.

The negotiating body will be set up by the end of the year and the chair and members appointed in 2026 to 2027. The first round of negotiations will commence in April 2027 and the first pay agreement will be introduced by April 2028.

Note that the Welsh and Scottish Governments can set up their own negotiating bodies. However, there is a significant difference in the meaning of “social care worker”. In Wales and Scotland it means a person who is employed in the provision of social care to any individual while in England it is the provision of social care to individuals aged 18 or over.

Finally, as a reminder, the Act will also establish a School Support Staff Negotiating Body (SSSNB) for school support staff in state-funded schools in England. The Government’s consultation response was published on 9 July 2026. This states that until the SSSNB is fully operational, staff will remain on their existing arrangements for the 2026-27 financial year, with SSSNB outcomes applying from the 2027-28 financial year at the earliest. There is no mention of the SSSNB in the updated implementation timetable.

Reinstating the two-tier Code

The Act will amend the Procurement Act 2023 to ensure outsourced private sector employees are offered no less favourable terms and conditions to employees transferred from the public sector.

By way of background information, the 2005 Code of Practice on workforce matters in public sector service contracts (also known as the two-tier Code) required that, where new staff were recruited to work on a public sector service contract alongside staff transferred from a public authority, they would be offered terms and conditions which were no less favourable than those of transferred employees. The purpose of the Code of Practice was to prevent the emergence of a two-tier workforce. However, the Code of Practice was withdrawn in 2010. The Act will reinstate the Code of Practice through regulations expected to be in force in October 2026 but no date has been confirmed. Further legislation will be needed to set out the details.

Strengthening the rules on tipping

Although this measure was supposed to be introduced in October 2026, due to recent developments it been delayed.

There is already an obligation on employers to ensure that workers receive tips, gratuities and service charges (tips) in full and that tips are allocated in a fair and transparent way. The Act provides that employers will be required to consult with workers and trade union representatives (or other worker representatives) when developing or revising their written tips policy and to review that policy at least once every three years.

A consultation paper was issued on 5 February 2026 and views were sought on whether the current legislation could be improved and how the new requirements could be implemented effectively. The Government published its response on 29 June 2026 alongside a draft revised Code of Practice on the fair and transparent distribution of tips.

There was considerable opposition to the draft Code of Practice which Unite called “flawed” and it asked the Government to withdraw it which it did on 13 July 2026. There will be further consultation on the draft Code of Practice and as a result, the timeline for the tipping changes introduced by the Act has been delayed and they will take effect by the end of 2026.

Other developments

Holiday pay compliance and enforcement

As mentioned in our earlier article, April 2026 key dates the Fair Work Agency (FWA) was established on 7 April 2026. The Government has already confirmed that the FWA will enforce statutory holiday pay rights from 2027and on 30 June 2026, it published a consultation paper Holiday pay compliance and enforcement. The Government intends that the main focus of state enforcement is to support lower-income workers and workers in more vulnerable or precarious employment. As it states, “for the first time, the right to holiday pay will be backed by state enforcement with the Fair Work Agency promoting compliance, investigating non-compliance and taking action where employers fail to meet their obligations”.

The Government is proposing that the FWA would investigate holiday pay claims up to six years in the past which aligns with the six-year period for employers keeping holiday pay records. It also proposes that the civil penalty for enforcement should be the same as for national minimum wage breaches – a civil penalty of 200% of arrears owed to workers paid to the Government, a maximum penalty of £20,000 per worker and a minimum penalty of £100. Note that enforcement by the FWA is intended to complement the Employment Tribunal system and it will not replace a worker’s right to bring an Employment Tribunal claim. However, arrears cannot be recovered from both the Employment Tribunal and the FWA. Significantly, the FWA enforcement activity assesses compliance for the entire workforce of a business, not just single workers. The FWA can also look at an employer’s compliance “with multiple aspects of employment law” and so, while inspecting for holiday pay compliance the FAW can also inspect for minimum wage compliance at the same time.

The consultation period ends on 22 September 2026.

Acas consultation on draft Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures

The current Code of Practice was last fully revised in 2009 and Acas wants to update it “to promote better the early resolution of concerns in the workplace”. The Code of Practice is supplemented by extensive Acas Guidance on disciplinary and grievance procedures and this Guidance will also be updated alongside the revised Code of Practice once finalised. Some of the key points of the draft Code of Practice are set out below.

The draft Code of Practice explicitly encourages early and informal resolution wherever possible and seeks to avoid “overly formalising informal approaches”. Interestingly, the draft Code of Practice refers to employer and worker “concerns” rather than “disciplinary” and “grievance” issues when describing informal resolution. It also reminds users of the importance of equality and inclusion when raising and handling workplace concerns and gives illustrative examples of adjustments that could be needed to ensure a fair process.

The draft Code of Practice includes an encouragement for employers to provide training and support to help managers, workers and representatives build the skills and confidence needed to resolve concerns early and effectively. Although it retains the basic steps on formal disciplinary procedures from the existing Code of Practice the draft considers in particular, whether there should be guidance on the limited circumstances when it may be appropriate to suspend a worker and guidance on communicating the decision to suspend.

In relation to a formal grievance, the draft Code of Practice states that workers should set out how they would like their concern to be resolved and the informal steps already taken to try and resolve concerns. If they have not tried informal resolution they will need to explain why not.

Finally, the draft Code of Practice includes a new section on dispute resolution options such as mediation and facilitated conversations.

The consultation period ends on 23 September 2026 but there is no further information about when the revised Code of Practice will come into force.

It is worth mentioning that the high-profile changes to unfair dismissal, namely the reduction of the qualifying period to six months and removal of the compensation cap will take effect from 1 January 2027.