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Workplace Discrimination

Discrimination law is stronger than unfair dismissal law in three ways that matter: it applies from your first day with no qualifying period, it covers how you are treated at work and not just how you are dismissed, and compensation is uncapped and includes an award for injury to feelings. The Equality Act 2010 protects nine characteristics, and the deadline is again three months. Call 07476 557650 free, any hour — and a one-hour consultation with a UK solicitor (£145, a fixed fee) can be booked right on the call.

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Three months less one day from the discriminatory act — or from the last act in a continuing course of conduct, which is often the argument that saves an older complaint. Acas early conciliation first. Do not wait for a grievance to conclude before starting the clock running in your mind.

Workplace Discrimination at a glance

Nine protected characteristics

Age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation

Day one right

No qualifying period at all — it applies from recruitment onwards, including to job applicants

Uncapped compensation

Including an award for injury to feelings on a banded scale, on top of financial loss

Adjustments are a duty

Employers must make reasonable adjustments for disabled workers — failing to is itself discrimination

The burden can shift

Prove facts from which discrimination could be inferred and the employer must then prove it did not happen

The forms discrimination takes

Direct discrimination is being treated worse because of a protected characteristic. Indirect discrimination is a policy applied to everyone that puts your group at a particular disadvantage and cannot be justified — a rigid full-time-only rule affecting mothers, a blanket dress code cutting across religious observance. Harassment is unwanted conduct related to a characteristic that violates your dignity or creates a hostile environment. Victimisation is being punished for complaining about discrimination or supporting someone else's complaint, and it is protected separately — which matters, because retaliation is often the more provable wrong. Talk it through with a lawyer now →

Disability and reasonable adjustments

Disability has a legal definition: a physical or mental impairment with a substantial and long-term adverse effect on normal day-to-day activities. It covers far more than people expect — long-term mental health conditions, diabetes, dyslexia, long COVID and many others, with cancer, HIV and multiple sclerosis protected from diagnosis. Where an employer knows or ought to know you are disabled, it has a positive duty to make reasonable adjustments: altered hours, equipment, changes to how a role is done, or redeployment. That duty is not satisfied by sympathy, and refusing an adjustment without seriously considering it is a claim in itself. Talk it through with a lawyer now →

Proving it, and what it is worth

Discrimination is rarely admitted, so cases are built from comparators, patterns and documents: who else was treated differently, what changed after you disclosed a pregnancy or a diagnosis, what the emails actually say. The burden of proof helps — establish facts from which discrimination could be inferred and it falls to the employer to prove a non-discriminatory explanation. Compensation covers financial loss without a cap, plus injury to feelings assessed in bands from modest awards for one-off incidents to substantial ones for a sustained campaign, and aggravated damages where the employer's conduct made it worse. Talk it through with a lawyer now →

If you are being discriminated against, step by step

Write it down as it happensDates, words used, who was present. Contemporaneous notes are worth far more than later recollection.

Raise it formally and use the wordA grievance that names discrimination triggers protection from victimisation.

Watch the three month clock from the startStart Acas conciliation before the deadline, not after the grievance. Call 07476 557650 free, any hour — and a one-hour consultation with a UK solicitor (£145, a fixed fee) can be booked right on the call.

Workplace Discrimination — your questions answered

I have only been there two months. Can I still claim?

Yes. Discrimination has no qualifying period — it protects you from the recruitment process onwards, so even a job applicant who was never employed can bring a claim. This is the single most important difference from ordinary unfair dismissal, and it is why the real reason for a short-service dismissal is always worth examining closely.

Is my mental health condition a disability at work?

It can be. The test is whether the impairment has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on normal day-to-day activities, where long-term generally means it has lasted or is likely to last at least twelve months. Depression and anxiety often qualify; a brief episode usually will not. Crucially, the effect is judged without the treatment — so medication that controls the condition does not remove the protection.

What is injury to feelings worth?

It is awarded in bands, and where your case falls depends on the seriousness and duration of what happened: the lowest band is for one-off or isolated incidents, the middle band for serious cases that do not merit the highest, and the top band for a lengthy campaign of harassment. It is separate from, and additional to, compensation for lost earnings, and it is available even where you lost no money at all.