Data to 1 June 2026
Sources
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The legal landscape
Where employers are losing at tribunal
Do you have a system for the process for your people?
Do you have a system that records and shows the analytics for your workplace?
Seven scenes, ninety seconds. Acas and Ministry of Justice figures to 1 June 2026. Click any scene below, or tap the stage to pause.
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Disability discrimination: Acas notifications and tribunal claims
Disability discrimination: Acas notifications and tribunal claims, 2019-20 to 2025-26 0 10,000 20,000 30,000 2019-20 2020-21 2021-22 2022-23 2023-24 2024-25 2025-26 28,111 +83% 12,753 +71%
Disability claims have risen 71% in six years, and the line is steepening.
Four fifths of that growth came in the last two years, each claim starting with something nobody wrote down.
12,753 of 40,480 tribunal claims cite disability discrimination, 31.5% 40,480 claims lodged, 2025/26 31.5% 12,753 of 40,480 cite disability discrimination
40,480 claims reached the tribunal in 2025/26. Nearly one in three cites disability.One in three claims cites disability. The first thing a tribunal asks an employer for is the record of what was done.
Jurisdictions cited across 40,480 claims
Jurisdictions cited across 40,480 employment tribunal claims, 2025/26 Unfair dismissal 20,500 Disability discrimination 13,000 Unpaid wages 11,500 Breach of contract 8,500 Holiday pay 7,000 Public interest disclosure 6,500 Race discrimination 5,500 Sex discrimination 5,000 Redundancy pay 2,500 Age discrimination 2,500 Other 9,000 second only to unfair dismissal A single claim can cite more than one jurisdiction, so the bars do not sum to the claim total. Figures are approximate.
Second only to unfair dismissal, and ahead of pay.
On its own it matches race, sex and age discrimination combined, and it turns on judgement rather than arithmetic.
Median award
£17,218
Half of awards sit below this
Average award
£44,483
Pulled up by a few very large awards
Maximum award
£964,465
In a single disability case
Cap
None
Discrimination compensation has no upper limit
Awards for 2023/24, the latest year the Ministry of Justice has published. Defence costs from the 2018 Survey of Employment Tribunal Applications.
The median award is £17,218 . The average is £44,483 . The ceiling does not exist.
The award is the tail. The defence is the certainty: a median £5,000 in fees plus nine days of management time, win or lose.
From 1 October, an employee has twice as long to decide.
An employer's records now have to hold up for twice as long, about events twice as far in the past.
Do you have a system for the process for your people?
Do you have a system that records and shows the analytics for your workplace?
SATIEE is one platform for the request, the decision, the implementation and the review. Every step writes to an immutable audit log. A six tab analytics suite shows what is open, what is late, and what it cost. That is a system for the process and a system for the analytics.
Achieve compliance at scale.
01 The trend 02 The scale 03 The ranking 04 The cost 05 What changes 06 Sources 07 The two questions
Sources and data Close
Sources
Acas annual report data tables, 3 July 2026. Early conciliation and employment tribunal cases data 2025 to 2026 .
Acas, Individual disputes facts and figures 2025 to 2026, Table 1.4, restated basis. Data tables (ODS) .
Ministry of Justice, Employment Tribunal and EAT Tables 2023 to 2024, sheet E_6, published 3 October 2024, provisional. Tables (ODS) .
BEIS, Survey of Employment Tribunal Applications: findings from the 2018 survey .
GOV.UK, Being taken to an employment tribunal by an employee: if you lose the case .
Department for Business and Trade, Plan to Make Work Pay and Employment Rights Act: timeline update , last updated 25 August 2026.
The data
Acas notifications and tribunal claims citing disability discrimination, by year Year Acas notifications Tribunal claims 2019-20 15,371 7,474 2020-21 12,988 6,356 2021-22 10,991 6,545 2022-23 14,018 7,361 2023-24 15,361 8,496 2024-25 19,222 10,834 2025-26 28,111 12,753
Tribunal claims lodged in 2025/26 All claims 40,480 Citing disability discrimination 12,753 Share 31.5%
Jurisdictions cited across 40,480 claims, approximate Jurisdiction Citations Unfair dismissal 20,500 Disability discrimination 13,000 Unpaid wages 11,500 Breach of contract 8,500 Holiday pay 7,000 Public interest disclosure 6,500 Race discrimination 5,500 Sex discrimination 5,000 Redundancy pay 2,500 Age discrimination 2,500 Other 9,000
Data to 1 June 2026. Page published 3 September 2026. Acas annual report data, summer 2027. MoJ awards when published.