From 1 January 2027 the qualifying period for an ordinary unfair dismissal claim falls from two years to six months. Employees taken on before that date are brought in too: anyone employed on or before 1 July 2026 will qualify. The statutory cap on the compensatory award is also removed from 1 January 2027. The practical consequence for hiring is that the window in which a wrong hire can be corrected cheaply has shrunk to roughly two quarters.
That turns front-end screening quality from an administrative preference into a financial control, and it is worth doing the arithmetic before the date rather than after.
What Changed and When
The Employment Rights Act 2025 became law on 18 December 2025 and is being commenced in tranches. The unfair dismissal provisions reduce the qualifying period from two years to six months, and the requirement to give written reasons for dismissal on request follows the same reduction.
Two dates matter for planning. Employees engaged on or before 1 July 2026 qualify from commencement. The change itself takes effect from 1 January 2027, alongside removal of the compensation cap. Day one unfair dismissal rights, discussed during the Bill's passage, sit later in the roadmap rather than in this tranche.
Check the commencement regulations for the position applying to your own workforce, because the tranching is genuinely intricate and has already moved once.
Why This Is a Screening Problem, Not an HR Problem
Under a two year qualifying period, a hiring mistake had a long correction window. Performance management could run its course, a probation extension was uncontroversial, and the risk of a claim from a short-service employee was limited to the automatically unfair and discrimination categories.
At six months the arithmetic inverts. Recruitment for a professional role frequently takes eight to twelve weeks from advert to start date. Add a three month probation and a notice period, and the qualifying threshold arrives at roughly the moment a manager has gathered enough evidence to act. Removing the compensation cap then changes the downside from a bounded number to an uncapped one.
The cheapest place to fix a hiring error has always been before the offer. It is now the only place where the cost is predictable.
Where Bad Hires Actually Originate
Volume is part of the story. Application counts have risen sharply: the Institute of Student Employers has reported an average of around 140 applications per graduate vacancy against roughly 38 two decades ago, and two thirds of UK hiring managers surveyed by Robert Half said the rise in AI-generated applications had lengthened their time to hire.
The failure mode is predictable. When a sift is compressed, the first candidates receive proper attention and the last receive a scan. Selection stops being a comparison against criteria and becomes a comparison against whatever the reviewer read most recently. Errors introduced there are invisible until somebody is in the job.
The Three Recurring Causes
- Claimed capability accepted as evidenced capability. A CV lists a skill. Nobody establishes whether the candidate has demonstrably used it.
- Criteria that cannot be assessed. Requirements written as aspirations rather than as things a reviewer can find proof of.
- Inconsistent depth across the pile. The same rubric applied generously at the start and thinly at the end.
Raising the Screening Bar in Practice
Write Criteria That Can Be Evidenced
Convert each requirement into a question with a findable answer. Not "strong stakeholder management" but "has the candidate described a situation where they held a position against a senior stakeholder, and what was the outcome". The second can be assessed consistently. The first cannot.
Separate Claimed From Evidenced
For every essential criterion, record whether the CV evidences it, merely claims it, or does not address it. That distinction is the difference between a shortlist built on proof and one built on vocabulary. It also produces a record that explains itself later.
Apply the Same Rubric to Candidate One and Candidate Three Hundred
Consistency is the control that volume destroys. Whatever method you use, it has to survive the last hour of a long sift as well as the first.
Probe the Gaps at Interview
A structured sift should hand the interviewer a list of what was claimed but not evidenced. That is the most valuable output of a screening process and it is usually discarded.
Probation Needs Redesigning Too
Screening reduces the number of wrong hires. It does not eliminate them, so the correction window has to work harder.
Set review points at four, eight and sixteen weeks rather than a single end-of-probation conversation. Define what success looks like in writing before the start date. Require managers to record evidence at each review, not impressions. And make the decision point fall meaningfully before the qualifying threshold rather than on top of it.
The common failure is a probation review that happens late, produces no written record, and defaults to confirmation because nobody documented the concerns they had at week six.
What Does Not Change
Two categories were never subject to a qualifying period and still are not. Automatically unfair dismissals, including those connected to whistleblowing, trade union activity, pregnancy and asserting a statutory right, are actionable from day one. Discrimination claims under the Equality Act 2010 require no service at all and never did, and they extend to the recruitment process itself.
A tightened screening process therefore has to be defensible as well as rigorous. Applying a consistent, documented, evidence-based rubric serves both aims. Introducing sharper but inconsistent filtering creates a discrimination exposure while solving the unfair dismissal one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does This Apply to Existing Employees?
Employees engaged on or before 1 July 2026 will qualify, so this is not limited to new hires. Existing short-service staff should be reviewed on that basis.
Is Probation Still Useful?
Yes, as a management framework with defined review points and written evidence. It has never in itself removed the right to claim, and at a six month qualifying period the timing of reviews matters considerably more.
What Happened to Day One Rights?
Day one unfair dismissal protection sits later in the implementation roadmap rather than in the January 2027 tranche, and the indicated timing moved during the Bill's passage. Plan for the confirmed dates and watch the roadmap for the rest.
Does Removing the Compensation Cap Change Settlement Behaviour?
It removes a predictable ceiling from the employer's risk assessment, which tends to strengthen a claimant's negotiating position. Take advice on your own exposure rather than assuming previous benchmarks hold.
Can We Simply Hire More Slowly?
Slower hiring is not the same as better hiring, and in a market where postings have fallen it risks losing the candidates you want. The improvement that matters is the quality of the evidence your sift produces, not the number of weeks it consumes.
The Practical Summary
A shorter qualifying period and an uncapped award move the cost of a wrong hire earlier and make it larger. Neither is avoidable. What is controllable is how much proof you gather before the offer, and how consistently you gather it.
Agencies and in-house teams that can show a documented, evidence-based, uniformly applied sift are better placed on three fronts at once: fewer wrong hires, a defensible record if selection is challenged, and a genuine answer when a client asks how the shortlist was built.
This article is general information about employment legislation, not legal advice. Commencement detail is intricate and has changed before. Take specialist employment law advice on your own position.
Sources
Department for Business and Trade. Implementing the Plan to Make Work Pay and Employment Rights Act: Timeline Update.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/implementing-the-plan-to-make-work-pay-and-employment-rights-act/plan-to-make-work-pay-and-employment-rights-act-timeline-update
Department for Business and Trade. Unfair Dismissal Changes: Summary of Stakeholder Roundtables.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/summary-of-stakeholder-roundtables-on-unfair-dismissal-changes/unfair-dismissal-changes-summary-of-stakeholder-roundtables
The Stationery Office. The Employment Rights Act 2025 (Commencement No. 4 and Transitional and Saving Provisions) Regulations 2026.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2026/559/contents/made
The Stationery Office. Equality Act 2010.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents
GOV.UK. Equality Act 2010: Guidance.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/equality-act-2010-guidance
Information Commissioner's Office. Employment Practices: Recruitment and Selection.
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/employment/recruitment-and-selection/
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