The Employment Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent on the 18th December 2025. Over the last year, the Government has been consulting on many parts of the Act, as part of their ‘Make Work Pay’ initiative. They have been seeking views from employers, workers and trade unions, focusing on the secondary legislation and codes of practice that will underpin the new legal framework. You can view completed and ongoing ERA 2025 consultations on the Government website here.

Consultations fall into three main categories:

• Pay and job security, covering zero-hours contracts and guaranteed hours; agency work and umbrella companies; Statutory Sick Pay; fire-and-rehire; and collective redundancy protections.
• Family-friendly and flexible working rights, including pregnancy and maternity dismissal protections; bereavement leave, pregnancy loss; and day-one parental and paternity leave rights.
• Collective and trade union rights, including union access to workplaces; balloting and industrial action processes; and protection against detriment for union activity.

What’s already changed (via ACAS)

Some changes took place between December 2025 and October 2026.

Strikes, industrial action and trade union ballots

On 18 December 2025, rules around ‘minimum service levels’ for strikes were removed. These rules were about keeping services running during a strike.

On 18 February 2026, the following changes happened:

• dismissal for taking part in industrial action became ‘automatically unfair’
• the...

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