Last updated 27th May 2025

We’ve created this tracker to keep you up to date with all the latest developments in Employment & Immigration law – please bookmark it to make sure you don’t miss our latest posts. You can see what’s on the horizon at a glance by clicking on the video or use the links below to see a summary of the current status.

Please note that this material has been published for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.

Recent Updates

• The Employment Rights (Amendment, Revocation and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2023
• Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023
• Autumn Budget 2024
• Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023

Key Legislation

• Employment Rights Bill
• Equality (Race and Disability) Bill
• Legislation to limit the length of non-competes
• Pensions (Extension of Automatic Enrolment) Act 2023
• Paternity Leave (Bereavement) Act 2024

Key cases

Mr W Augustine v Data Cars Ltd: [2024] EAT 117

Dr D Miller v University of Bristol: 1400780/2022

The Employment Rights (Amendment, Revocation and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2023 and the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 have now come into force. For those interested, we’ve published standalone blogs here and here on some of the key takeaways from this legislation, including the practical implications of the changes to holiday pay calculations for irregular workers and the implications of an employer’s duty to take “reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace.

Moving on to the Autumn Budget, a major takeaway was the announcement that employer National Insurance contributions (NICs) will increase from 13.8% to 15% starting 6 April 2025. The threshold for when employers begin paying NICs on workers’ earnings will also be reduced from £9,100 to £5,000 per year.

The government also revealed plans to raise the National Minimum Wage (NMW) and extend the National Living Wage to those aged 18 and over, which is currently only available to those aged 21 and over.

From 1 April 2025, the new rates for NMW will be:

Finally, the government published the Benefit and Pension Rates 2025 to 2026, setting out planned increases to statutory payments including statutory sick pay, maternity pay, paternity pay, adoption pay and shared parental pay, parental bereavement pay, and maternity allowance, from April 2025.

• The weekly rate of statutory sick pay will be £118.75 (up from £116.75).
• The weekly rate of statutory maternity pay, maternity allowance, statutory adoption pay, statutory paternity pay, statutory shared parental pay and statutory parental bereavement pay will be £187.18 (up from £184.03).
• The lower earnings limit (the weekly earnings threshold for qualifying for the above payments, except maternity allowance) will be £125 (up from £123). For maternity allowance the threshold remains at £30 a week.

The Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023 has also recently come into force and will allow eligible employed parents whose new‑born baby is admitted to neonatal care to take up to 12 weeks of paid leave. This is in addition to other leave and pay entitlements such as maternity and paternity pay.

Lastly, in a much-publicised landmark ruling, the UK Supreme Court has unanimously ruled in the case of For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers [2025] UKSC 16 that the legal definition of “woman” and “sex” under the Equality Act 2010 refers to biological sex and not gender identity or acquired gender status through a Gender Recognition Certificate. We will be publishing further considerations on the practical steps employers may need to take following this decision.

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The government’s Employment Rights Bill (ERB) will implement 28 employment law reforms, including:

• establishing day-one rights for unfair dismissal (subject to a new statutory probationary period), as well as for paternity, parental and bereavement leave;
• zero-hours workers will be entitled to guaranteed hour contracts reflecting hours worked;
• “fire and rehire” practices will be restricted by making it automatically unfair to dismiss an employee for refusing to agree to contractual variations (unless an employer can show evidence of financial difficulties and demonstrate that the need to change the contractual terms was “unavoidable”);
• minimum service levels legislation and parts of the Trade Union Act 2016 will also be repealed;
• flexible working will be made the default for all, unless an employer can prove it is unreasonable; and
• large employers will be required to create equality action plans addressing gender pay gaps and to support employees through the menopause.

On 27 January 2025, the government published an updated version of the ERB. The (eclectic) range of amendments includes:

• most significantly, an increase in the employment tribunal limitation periods for bringing claims to six months, double the current three-month limit for most claims;
• increased protections for zero-hour workers where if an employer rescinds a guaranteed hours offer, it must serve detailed notice to the worker;
• provisions to promote the adoption of international agreements in maritime employment and improve seafarers’ wages and working conditions;
• ensuring that trade unions cannot access any part of a dwelling used for business purposes without a warrant; and
• regulations around intelligence officers’ duty to (or more accurately not to) disclose confidential information.

Throughout March and April, further amendments were introduced as the ERB continues its journey though the parliamentary process, which included (but were not limited to):

• a higher threshold being introduced when employers are making redundancies at more than one establishment;
• extending the right to guaranteed hours and reasonable notice of shifts to agency workers as well as including new provisions allowing for a collective agreement to opt out of these rights if alternative terms are agreed upon; and
• affording zero hour and low hour workers additional protections, including expanding the categories of automatically unfair dismissal to include dismissals where the reason for dismissal is that the employer has incorrectly given the employee notice withdrawing a guaranteed hours offer in specified circumstances.

The government has also issued a number of responses in relation to ongoing consultations which were introduced last year in respect of the Employment Rights Bill. The key takeaways from these responses are as follows:

• increasing the maximum protective award for failure to collectively consult to 90 days’ pay to 180 days’ pay to disincentivise employers from seeking to simply buy out employees’ rights;
• amongst other changes, extending the mandate for industrial action following a ballot from six months to 12 months and reducing the notice period that unions must provide before strike action from 14 days to 10 days; and
• opening up statutory sick pay (SSP) and scrapping the four-day waiting period for SSP, so employees will be entitled to SSP from day one of sickness.

For those interested in learning more, we recently published a blog which provides more detail and includes our view of the proposed provisions here and here.

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Key points

Announced in the King’s Speech 2024, the draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill aims to introduce a statutory right to equal pay for ethnic minorities and disabled people – making it easier to challenge pay disparities due to ethnicity or disability – and extend pay gap reporting, requiring employers with 250 or more employees to disclose pay gaps related to ethnicity and disability.

Date of entry into force

TBC. The Bill is expected to progress more slowly than the Employment Rights Bill due to extensive consultation.

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Key points

The previous Conservative government had confirmed that it would introduce a statutory limit on the length of non-compete clauses of 3 months and bring forward legislation to introduce the statutory limit “when parliamentary time allows”. It is now unclear when (and if!) the Labour government will take this forward.

Date of entry into force

TBC.

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Key Points

The Pensions (Extension of Automatic Enrolment) (No 2) Bill 2023 received Royal Assent on 18 September 2023. The Act will amend the Pensions Act 2008 to implement two key recommendations made by the Department of Work and Pensions in their 2017 independent review of auto-enrolment. Regulation-making power will be introduced to: (i) reduce the lower age threshold for auto-enrolment; and (ii) reduce or repeal the amount of the lower limit of the qualifying earnings band.

Date of entry into force

The substantive provisions of the Act will come into force on a day appointed in a statutory instrument made by the Secretary of State. Therefore, it is not possible to provide a timescale for implementation.

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The Paternity Leave (Bereavement) Act received Royal Assent on 24 May 2024. The Act itself makes provisions about paternity leave in cases where a mother, or a person with whom a child is placed or expected to be placed for adoption, dies.

Although not set out in the Act itself, there is also an intention for additional regulations to provide for a bereaved father or partner to have 52 weeks’ paternity leave available during the first year of their child’s life, from the day on which the mother or primary adopter of the child has died.

Date of entry into force

Regulations are needed to bring the Act into force.

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Mr W Augustine v Data Cars Ltd: [2024] EAT 117

Mr Augustine, a part-time private hire driver, claimed unfair treatment due to a flat-rate fee applied equally to all drivers, which disproportionately impacted his earnings compared to full-time drivers. While the EAT acknowledged this disparity, it upheld the ruling that the treatment was not solely due to his part-time status under the “sole reason” test. His appeal to the Court of Appeal is expected by July 2025.

Dr D Miller v University of Bristol: 1400780/2022

Dr Miller, a university professor dismissed for gross misconduct tied to his anti-Zionist comments, successfully claimed direct belief discrimination and unfair dismissal. The Employment Tribunal recognized his anti-Zionist beliefs as protected under the Equality Act 2010, ruling that his dismissal was unreasonable and discriminatory. The University’s appeal will be heard by the EAT by November 2025.

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