The first changes to employment law as a result of the Employment Rights Act 2025 are now in force, and more changes will take effect throughout 2026 and 2027.

Following on from our April 2026 update we have prepared an ERA 2025 Compliance Health Check. This is a simple 12 question form which will help you to quickly assess your organisation’s ERA 2025 exposure.

The ERA 2025 received Royal Assent in December 2025 and introduces 28 wide-ranging reforms that take effect from various dates in 2026 and 2027.

Following the first wave of changes in February 2026 (which related to Trade Unions and industrial action), we set out below a summary of the next wave of these changes, which take effect in April 2026.

The Employment Rights Bill has today (18 December 2025) received Royal Assent and has now become the Employment Rights Act 2025.

Since the Bill was first published in October 2024, a number of the proposed reforms have been changed or removed altogether, so we set out a final summary of the key changes.

The draft Employment Rights Bill has been yo-yoing between the House of Commons and House of Lords for some time, primarily due to disagreement on the right qualifying period for unfair dismissal. The Government has been under increasing pressure to find a compromise between businesses and Unions, and this is it - designed to ensure that the Employment Rights Bill becomes law as soon as possible.

Earlier this week, MPs in the House of Commons again debated the Employment Rights Bill, looking particularly at amendments proposed by the House of Lords that would have narrowed the scope of the Bill.

We are now in the final stages of the legislative process. Next, the Bill will go back to the House of Lords, after which it is expected to receive Royal Assent.