UK: Employment Rights Act 2026: Timetable for Implementation

Authors: Stephen Miller, Corinna Harris, and Sophie Jackson

The UK Government has published an updated timeline for the implementation of their workplace law changes under the Employment Right Act.

Mostly, the planned dates for implementation of the Employment Right Act continue to be those outlined previously, but there are a couple of changes to the original timeline. These include:

• The new restrictions on ‘fire and rehire’ dismissals which were originally planned for October 2026 will take effect in January 2027.
• The introduction of electronic and workplace balloting for statutory trade union ballots which was originally planned for April 2026 has been delayed until August 2026.

Separately, the UK Government has launched consultations on various measures being introduced by the Employment Rights Act 2025 – including ‘fire and rehire’, trade union recognition, flexible working requests, and employer policies on tipping. The flexible working consultation (considered next) closes on 30 April; and the remaining three close on 1 April.

The Government is also consulting on the regulation of the temporary recruitment sector, including umbrella companies. This is in addition to measures being introduced on 6 April 2026 to tackle umbrella company tax non-compliance by making the UK agency that supplies workers to an end-client (or if there is no UK agency or the UK agency is connected to the umbrella company, the end-client) jointly and severally responsible for the PAYE liabilities of the umbrella company that employs the worker.

The new “fire and rehire” protections will make it automatically unfair for an employer to dismiss an employee either because they did not agree to a “restricted variation” of their contract of employment or in order to re-engage them or replace them with someone else to carry out substantially the same duties under a varied contract of employment (including at least one “restricted variation”). The consultation on “fire and rehire” focuses on the scope of “restricted variation” for the purposes of the new protections.

It seeks views on what type of contractual changes to employment expenses, benefits and payments in kind, share schemes and shift patterns, should constitute “restricted variations” for the purposes of the new right not to be automatically dismissed for failing to agree to a restricted variation. The Government’s stated preference is for all expenses and benefits to be excluded and for significant shift changes to be included, for example, changes from day to night working / weekday to weekend working (or vice versa).

Key Action Points for Human Resources and In-house Counsel:

It is helpful for employers to have some additional time to prepare for the fire and rehire changes and the introduction of e-balloting. Once the consultations have completed, more information will become available on the detail of the Government’s proposals for changes in these areas. We can help you get prepared for the significant changes ahead, please get in touch with us.