UK employers face a duty to stop third-party harassment from 30 October

UK employers face a duty to stop third-party harassment from 30 October

22 October 2026: From 30 October 2026, employers in Great Britain must take "all reasonable steps" to prevent sexual harassment of their employees and must not permit employees to be harassed by third parties such as customers, clients and contractors' staff. The Department for Business and Trade confirmed the date in its timetable for the Employment Rights Act 2025, updated on 22 October, alongside a set of trade union measures that start the same day.

Not yet independently verified. The timetable states that all future dates remain subject to parliamentary processes and may change, and the regulations that will list specific harassment prevention steps have not been made yet. We will update this when it can be confirmed, and remove this note.

What changes on 30 October

The harassment measures are three:

• a duty to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of employees;
• a new obligation not to permit harassment of employees by third parties;
• a power for the minister to make regulations later setting out evidence-based steps employers must take, which will add to the general duty rather than replace it.

The third-party duty is the one most employers have not had to plan for. It brings conduct by people the employer does not employ, from a customer in a shop to a client at an offsite meeting, inside the employer's responsibility. Sectors with public-facing staff, hospitality, retail, care and contact centres among them, carry most of the exposure.

The trade union measures starting the same day strengthen unions' right of access to workplaces, reform recognition and derecognition, including freezing the bargaining unit once an application is received, add rights and protections for union representatives, and extend protection against detriment for taking industrial action.

What has already moved, and what comes next

The time limit for bringing an Employment Tribunal claim rose from three to six months on 1 October; for breach of contract claims in Scotland the change follows on 9 November. On 1 January 2027 the qualifying period for unfair dismissal falls to six months, for dismissals from that date, compensatory awards are uncapped, employers must tell workers of their right to join a union, and tipping law is strengthened. Fire and rehire protections follow in March 2027, and mandatory gender equality and menopause action plans for private and voluntary sector employers in April 2027, with bereavement leave and an organisation-wide collective redundancy threshold the same month.

Combined, the longer claim window and the end of the two-year qualifying period mean more claims, brought later, and an uncapped award attached to a dismissal that would previously have been out of scope.

Evidence an employer will be asked for

Under an all reasonable steps standard, a tribunal looks at what the employer actually did: a harassment risk assessment, a policy that names third parties, training, a reporting route, and records showing that reports were acted on. The payroll and HR provider Cintra, writing ahead of the change, cites a government estimate of £27,000 to £45,000 as the cost of a sexual harassment tribunal claim. HR and case management systems are where that evidence will have to come from, so the time to check that they record third-party incidents, not only complaints between colleagues, is before 30 October.

Sources

• GOV.UK (Department for Business and Trade): Plan to Make Work Pay and Employment Rights Act, timeline update, 22 October 2026
• HR News: Cintra warns employers to audit harassment risks ahead of 30 October legal changes, 21 October 2026