The Employment Rights Act 2025 (ERA 2025) marks the most ambitious overhaul of UK employment law since the Employment Rights Act 1996 came into force two decades ago. For businesses however, the real challenge is not the legislation itself, but how it will play out in practice. With reforms being phased in across 2026 and 2027, and fresh changes to the timetable announced in the last couple of weeks, the next 18 months will be less about reacting to a single legislative “big bang” and more about navigating a rolling programme of reform defined by preparation, policy change and operational recalibration.

For film and TV, games, betting, sports and broader media and technology businesses – where flexible, project-based and hybrid workforces are common – these reforms will no doubt have an impact. Below we look at what organisations should be considering now and what to watch out for over the year ahead.

2026 as the compliance runway

While the ERA 2025 received Royal Assent in December 2025, 2026 is shaping up as the critical transition year for employers. Key reforms such as day-one statutory sick pay, expanded parental leave rights, enhanced trade union protections and new enforcement mechanisms will come into force in February and April 2026, followed by enhanced harassment prevention duties and extended tribunal limitation periods later in the year. The flexibility previously available to employers will therefore be tightened.

Below you will find a brief timeline, although please do check our horizon tracker for more details:

• 18 February 2026:
  • Industrial action ballots become easier to run as a result of:
    • shorter notice periods (14 to 10 days);
    • longer mandates (12 months); and
    • protection against dismissal and “prescribed detriments” short of dismissal strengthened for those taking part in lawful action, such as adverse treatment in performance management or project allocation.
  • Employees can provide 28 days’ notice for paternity and unpaid parental leave that starts on or after 6 April 2026 as part of new “day-one” rights (although this does not change the eligibility requirements for all statutory parental pay).

• 6 and 7 April 2026:
  • Trade union recognition thresholds will be significantly lowered: the government will have the power to reduce the minimum membership threshold from 10% to as low as 2%, and the previous requirement for 40% overall support from the bargaining unit will be removed, requiring only a simple majority of voting union members;
  • Paternity leave and unpaid parental leave will be available from the first day of employment, with paternity leave permitted following a period of shared parental leave;
  • Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) will be reformed where:
    • the lower earnings limit will be removed, bringing lower‑paid workers into scope; and
    • SSP will become payable from day one of absence;
  • Maximum collective redundancy penalties/protective awards double from 90 to 180 days’ pay if an employer fails to meet collective redundancy consultation obligations;
  • Whistleblowing protections will be strengthened to expressly include disclosures relating to sexual harassment, with a suggestion that no limitation period will apply as to when the alleged sexual harassment occurred; and
  • A new Fair Work Agency will launch with powers to enforce national minimum wage (NMW), holiday pay, SSP and modern slavery obligations, and the ability to pursue tribunal claims on behalf of workers.

The phased timetable is intended to give employers time to adapt, but it also creates a prolonged period of operational change. Businesses that wait until each measure comes into force will find themselves reacting under pressure, and so the key is to use 2026 proactively.

Beyond contractual rights, the ERA 2025 signals a shift in workplace culture and enforcement. New enhanced duties to prevent sexual harassment (including by third parties), expanded whistleblowing protections and the creation of a Fair Work Agency indicate a more proactive and interventionist regulatory environment.

With union recognition becoming easier to achieve under the new framework, employers should also expect greater scrutiny of employment practices in areas such as pay structures and progression, use of fixed-term or project-based contracts, overtime and working hours, performance management and redundancy processes and diversity, equity and inclusion practices. Ensuring that policies, contracts and handbooks are up to date, consistent and defensible before any recognition process is underway is a sensible preparatory step.

What this means for businesses in early 2026

In terms of creative businesses which often rely on short engagements, lower-paid entry roles, irregular hours and fast-moving teams, the first wave of changes will have a disproportionate practical impact. Businesses should therefore consider:

• Updating policies on sickness, parental leave, grievance handling and disciplinary processes ahead of April 2026, as well as considering investing in workforce planning and scheduling tools to manage day-one statutory entitlements and shift-notice obligations.
• Strengthening harassment prevention frameworks and third-party conduct policies, particularly for on-set, live events and online community environments and refreshing whistleblowing procedures and training managers on escalation, documentation and investigation processes.
• Preparing for potential proactive engagement with the Fair Work Agency and potential sector-wide scrutiny over NMW, holiday pay and SSP by proactively auditing rota, shift and holiday accrual practices – areas historically at risk in shift‑based operations.
• Developing a union engagement strategy to decide in advance how the business would respond to a recognition request or organising activity, including who would be involved and what approach would be taken, and ensuring front-line managers understand the legal framework around what they can and cannot do.
• Budgeting accordingly as sick pay costs may rise, particularly for production, events and on-set teams with short contracts or variable hours.

We are happy to advise clients on any or all the above.

What clients should be thinking about for the second half of 2026 and beyond

The autumn will see the next phase of the ERA 2025. October is slated for measures that tighten workforce conduct standards and further reshape industrial relations. The creative, betting and sporting sectors, in particular, should track:

• New “all reasonable steps” sexual harassment duties and third-party harassment liabilities which will supplement the October 2024 preventative duty. Businesses will need to demonstrate that they are actively identifying risks, delivering meaningful training, and implementing effective risk assessments and response mechanisms. Policies alone will no longer suffice, especially amid the current news cycle of increased accountability.
• “Fire and rehire” restrictions, which make dismissals as a means to impose detrimental changes to core terms automatically unfair in most cases, will demand earlier workforce planning and stronger change‑management design.
• Stronger union access rights, including a new statutory framework giving unions the right to negotiate access to both physical workplaces and digital environments (significant for hybrid and remote-first businesses), a new duty to inform workers of their right to join a union via a mandatory written statement, new rights and protections for union representatives, extended protections against detriments for taking industrial action, and electronic balloting for union votes (replacing postal-only requirements) will all need to be factored into employers’ trade union engagement strategies.
• With tribunal time limits extending from three to six months, current and former staff will have additional time to bring claims and, with the additional preparation time, these claims are likely to be more comprehensively pleaded. Any business with reputational exposure will need to assess this carefully and will need to revisit their approach to employment disputes.

A moving timetable, but a clear message

The ERA 2025 isn’t a single legislative event but a multi-year transformation of the UK employment framework. As recent shifts in implementation dates have shown, the timetable remains fluid, with potential slippage regarding some implementation dates which we will continue to update you on. The next year should be treated as a strategic preparation phase rather than a period of uncertainty-driven inaction by aligning contracts, policies, culture and operational models with a more employee-centric regulatory framework.

The organisations that navigate this transition most successfully will be those that do not treat these changes as a compliance headache. Instead, they’ll use the first half of 2026 as a launchpad to thrive: modernising policies, strengthening governance and building working practices that are fit for the future. For creative businesses in particular, this is a moment to balance flexibility with fairness,  and to future-proof workforce models in a way that supports both creativity and compliance.

Please see previous articles for our ongoing analysis on the ERA 2025.

We are also hosting two upcoming webinars on the ERA 2025 and would love for you to join us. One is tailored to the Film & TV industry and the other will cover the impact on UK employers more generally.

Our employment and immigration lawyers will continue to track developments closely. We will issue further updates as implementation plans are announced and highlight where we think the changes may have a particular impact on the media, technology and sports sectors. In the meantime, our specialists are here to help if you have any questions.