Why Is 1 July 2026 A Date That Every Employer Should Be Aware Of?

There will be few (employers and employees alike) who are unaware of the Employment Rights Act 2025. 

This legislation is responsible for introducing a number of new employee rights and reforming others. This includes reducing on 1 January 2027 the qualifying period for ordinary unfair dismissal claims from 2 years to 6 months. All day one right claims (including automatically unfair dismissal and discrimination) are unaffected by this change.

This change means that employees hired on 1 July 2026 will have achieved the reduced 6 months’ qualifying service on 1 January 2027 and will therefore benefit from ordinary unfair dismissal protection as at that date.  Employers also need to be aware that employees employed between 1 July 2026 and 1 January 2027 can count that time toward the reduced qualifying 6 month period too.

Added to this, the compensatory cap (currently the lower of £123,543.00 or 52 weeks’ pay) will also be removed for dismissals that take effect on or after 1 January 2027.

So what should employers be doing now?

1. Probation procedures and probation clauses in contracts of employment should be reviewed and updated. Any employer operating a 6 months’ probation period should consider reducing it. Additionally, employers should identify and implement a robust probation review process which is consistently applied throughout its business/organisation

2. Train managers on effective probation management.  This training should Include:

• handling probation review meetings, and
• the importance of setting probation objectives and monitoring against those objectives throughout the probation period.

3. Introduce and practice consistent probation record keeping.  Templates can prove extremely effective for this type of record management.  These templates should align with probation review periods and probation objectives.

4. Make sure notice periods are correctly dealt with. Be aware that 1 week will be added when calculating qualifying service if an employee is paid in lieu of notice in accordance with their contract as opposed to working their notice. Arrangements should also be made to ensure notice is correctly served and received by employees. Ideally, therefore, by the beginning of December 2026 at the latest, employers should carry-out a business-wide/organisation-wide review of the need for any dismissal notices.