666 The Devil's in the detail

Halloween has just passed and as we hurtle towards Christmas we wanted to flag to our clients a number of significant recent and upcoming changes in employment law.

From 1 October 2026 employees now have six months in which to bring most Employment Tribunal claims, including unfair dismissal and discrimination, replacing the previous three-month limitation period. As a result, employers will face an enhanced potential period of having litigation bought against them.

Another substantial change concerns the qualifying service required to bring an ordinary unfair dismissal claim. From 1 January 2027, employees with more than six months' continuous service will be eligible to bring an unfair dismissal claim. This is clearly a significant shift from the previous 2-year service requirement.  

As the year draws to a close, we are keen to remind clients that as of today, there are now only six weeks until 25th December 2026. As of this date it will be too late to take any action to remove an employee with more than six months service. We will have already fallen into the new six month unfair dismissal regime. This is because any dismissal of an employee for the purposes of Tribunal claims has the one week statutory notice period added to the date they were terminated for the purposes of calculating their effective date of termination. Therefore, even if employers pay an employee in lieu of notice and terminate prior to 1 January 2027 they need to have taken this action at least 1 whole week before 1 January 2027. Employers therefore now have less than six weeks to take action.

In addition to the above, the statutory cap on unfair dismissal claims, previously limited to 12 months pay or £125,543 whichever was the lower, is being removed from 1 January 2027. This means that not only will employers be likely facing an increased volume of claims, the claims themselves could be worth significantly more with the removal of the statutory cap.

The new six month service for unfair dismissal rights from 2027 is likely to get some more air time in the press in December. We wanted to make sure that any of our clients thinking about taking action get ahead of the game. Now is the time to review your workforce and take appropriate action before the new six month time limit and uncapped unfair dismissal regime comes into force. Clients should consider the three 6’s as we approach the new year:

• Employees now have 6 months to file a claim in the tribunal;

• Employers have less than 6 weeks as of today to take action;

• Employees who have over 6 months service after 1 January 2027 can now bring claims for unfair dismissal.

If you need any advice on any of this or want to know how this may apply to you, our Employment Team would be happy to assist. Please contact Eleanor Disney at edisney@leathesprior.co.uk before 23 December 2026.