Since 26 October 2024, section 40A of the Equality Act 2010 has required every UK employer to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of its employees. The Employment Rights Act 2025 raises that to all reasonable steps and, for the first time, makes an employer liable where it permits a third party such as a customer, contractor or visitor to harass an employee. The government’s implementation roadmap sets both changes for October 2026. An employment tribunal can already increase a sexual harassment award by up to 25 per cent where the employer has breached the preventative duty, and compensation in discrimination cases carries no upper limit. Separately, from 1 October 2026 the time limit for bringing many employment tribunal claims doubles from three months to six.
Most employers still file harassment under human resources. From October 2026 it is better understood as a statutory duty with a compensation multiplier attached, and one that reaches past your own payroll to the people your staff deal with at work.
What does the law require now?
Section 40A of the Equality Act 2010 says an employer must take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of its employees in the course of their employment. It was inserted by the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 and came into force on 26 October 2024. The duty is to prevent, so it bites before anything has happened rather than after a complaint lands. A contravention is enforceable by the Equality and Human Rights Commission under Part 1 of the Equality Act 2006, and it feeds directly into what a tribunal awards when a harassment claim succeeds.
What changes in October 2026?
Two amendments made by the Employment Rights Act 2025. The government’s implementation roadmap lists both under October 2026, alongside the new tribunal time limits, fire and rehire enforcement and tighter tipping rules. At the time of writing, sections 20, 21 and 22 of the Act were still shown as prospective on legislation.gov.uk, so confirm the commencement date before building a plan around it.
From reasonable steps to all reasonable steps
Section 20 inserts a single word into section 40A. Reasonable steps becomes all reasonable steps. That is a smaller edit than it is a change of position. Under the current wording an employer can point to the sensible measures it did take. Under the new wording the question becomes whether there was anything further it could reasonably have done and did not.
Liability for harassment by third parties
Section 21 inserts new subsections into section 40 of the Equality Act 2010. The core provision reads: “An employer (A) must not permit a third party to harass a person (B) who is an employee of A.” An employer permits it only where the harassment happens in the course of the employee’s employment and the employer failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent it. A third party is anyone other than the employer and the employer’s own employees.
That is the provision with the widest reach for ordinary trading businesses. It covers customers, clients, patients, suppliers, contractors and visitors, and it is not confined to sexual harassment.
What can a tribunal award?
There is no upper limit on compensation in a discrimination claim, which is the single biggest difference between these claims and an ordinary unfair dismissal.
Awards for injury to feelings follow the Vento bands, uprated each April by presidential guidance. For claims presented on or after 6 April 2026 the lower band is £1,300 to £12,600, the middle band £12,600 to £37,700 and the upper band £37,700 to £62,900, with the most exceptional cases capable of exceeding £62,900. Loss of earnings sits on top of that figure, not inside it.
Then comes section 124A. Where a tribunal finds a contravention of section 40 involving sexual harassment and is satisfied the employer also breached the preventative duty, it may order a compensation uplift of up to 25 per cent of the award. The uplift is not automatic, and it is scaled to how far short the employer fell.
How long does an employee have to bring a claim?
From 1 October 2026 the time limit for presenting many employment tribunal complaints doubles from three months to six. It applies where the relevant date falls on or after 1 October 2026, or, where there has been a series of similar acts, where the last of them does. In practice claims will arrive later, evidence will be colder, and the window in which an incident can still become litigation is twice as long as the one most managers have in their heads.
What counts as a reasonable step?
Section 22 creates a power to make regulations specifying what counts as reasonable. The Act says they may cover carrying out assessments, publishing plans or policies, steps relating to the reporting of sexual harassment and steps relating to the handling of complaints. The roadmap places those regulations in 2027, so the detail is still to come.
Until then the sensible reading is the obvious one. A policy nobody has seen is not a step, and training delivered once several years ago is not a current one. A risk assessment naming where third party contact actually happens, evidence that staff were told, and a reporting route that does not run through the person being complained about are the things a tribunal can be shown.
Where insurance fits
Employers’ liability insurance is not the answer here. It responds to injury or illness suffered by an employee, and the line between that and other liabilities is set out in our guide to employers’ liability versus public liability. A harassment claim is an employment practices exposure, which in the UK market usually sits inside a management liability policy rather than standing alone, often alongside directors and officers cover where individual managers are named.
Four things are worth checking on any policy meant to respond: whether employment practices cover is actually included rather than assumed, whether defence costs sit inside or in addition to the limit, what the retroactive date is, and whether the wording contemplates harassment by someone who is not an employee, which is the exposure the third party provisions create.
The statutory limits and deadlines behind this page are collected in our UK insurance and tax key figures reference. If you want your cover checked against what changes in October, you can get a quote or contact us.