UK sets six-month unfair dismissal rule for 1 January in Act timetable

UK sets six-month unfair dismissal rule for 1 January in Act timetable

5 November 2026: Employees in Britain will need six months' service, not two years, to claim unfair dismissal for dismissals from 1 January 2027, with compensatory awards uncapped, under the Government's updated timetable for the Employment Rights Act. The Department for Business and Trade's page sets out each stage through to the end of 2027, and all future dates remain subject to parliamentary processes.

Not yet independently verified. The Government updated this timeline on 5 November without showing what changed, so we report the current dates rather than which ones moved. All future dates remain subject to parliamentary processes, as the page says. We will update this when it can be confirmed, and remove this note.

January is the date that affects hiring now

An employee hired in the second half of 2026 will reach six months' service during 2027, so the January change reaches people already on the payroll. That brings probation periods and the first few months of reviews into scope in a way they were not before, and the removal of the compensatory cap raises the cost of getting one wrong.

The same date brings a duty to inform workers of their right to join a union, and changes to tipping law.

The dates still to come

• 1 December 2026: Seafarer Protection Regulations.
• March 2027: fire and rehire protections, and mandatory gender equality and menopause action plans for public authorities.
• April 2027: the same action plans for private and voluntary employers, bereavement leave including pregnancy loss, blacklisting changes, and an organisation-wide collective redundancy threshold.
• August 2027: electronic ballots for union recognition.
• September 2027: regulations on non-disclosure agreements.
• October 2027: pregnancy dismissal protections and flexible working changes.
• December 2027: regulation of umbrella companies.

Zero-hours reforms, including guaranteed hours and notice for cancelled shifts, have no firm date on this page; timings follow consultation.

Already in force, and easy to have missed

Several changes have already landed, and an HR system configured before them may be out of date:

• 6 April 2026: day-one paternity and unpaid parental leave, the lower earnings limit and waiting period removed from statutory sick pay, and a doubled protective award for collective redundancy;
• 7 April 2026: the Fair Work Agency;
• 1 October 2026: the Employment Tribunal time limit extended from three months to six, with Scottish breach of contract claims following on 9 November;
• 30 October 2026: trade union access rights, the "all reasonable steps" duty on sexual harassment, and liability for third-party harassment.

Where the work falls in HR software

Much of this is settings rather than policy: leave types and eligibility, sick pay rules, service-date calculations and letter templates. HR teams can ask their vendors which of the 2026 changes have shipped and when the January service rule and the April 2027 leave entitlements will be supported. Workforce planning tools that assume a two-year qualifying period also need checking, particularly for seasonal and fixed-term hires.

We list 13 payroll software products, and a payroll vendor should be able to say what it has already changed for statutory sick pay in the current tax year.

Related on TrustList:

• UK plans a law making employers publish salaries in job adverts
• UK confirms the October dates: tribunal claims get six months from 1 October, the harassment duty tightens on 30 October
• DOL drops plan to pull FLSA guidance out of federal regulations

Sources

• GOV.UK, Department for Business and Trade: Plan to Make Work Pay and Employment Rights Act timeline update, updated 5 November 2026, 5 November 2026
• GOV.UK: Implementing the Plan to Make Work Pay and the Employment Rights Act, first published 3 February 2026, 3 February 2026