The Employment Rights Act 2025 (“ERA 2025”), which received Royal Assent on 18 December 2025, introduces wide-ranging reforms to UK employment law.
Many of these changes will have a significant operational and financial impact on public sector employers, particularly local authorities and schools, where large workforces, high levels of unionisation and public accountability increase exposure to risk.
This article highlights some of the most significant reforms and, importantly, what they mean in practice for in-house local government legal and HR teams.
What is changing and when?
From 1 January 2027, employees will be eligible to bring an unfair dismissal claim after six months’ continuous service. This represents a significant reduction from the current two-year qualifying period (although it stops short of introducing full day-one protection which was originally planned by the UK Government).
This change is expected to bring millions more employees within scope to bring claims, meaning that dismissals which previously carried limited legal risk may now be challengeable.
Impact on public sector employers
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