New rules under the Employment Rights Act 2025 raise the bar for employers on sexual harassment. For the first time in years, they are also now answerable for harassment of their employees by customers and clients. Here’s what it means for you.

Two changes, in plain English

Nobody should have to put up with being touched, propositioned, sent explicit messages or subjected to so-called banter at work.

The law has said that for a long time. What changes on 30th October 2026 is how much your employer has to do to prevent it, and who they have to protect you from.

1. “Reasonable steps” becomes “all reasonable steps”. Since October 2024, employers have had to take reasonable steps to stop sexual harassment happening in the first place. From 30th October, that becomes all reasonable steps.

Doing the bare minimum is no longer enough: if there was something sensible your employer could have done to protect you, and didn't, that counts against them.

2. Harassment by outsiders becomes your employer's problem. Until now, if a customer, client, patient or contractor harassed you, your employer could often wash its hands of it. From 30th October, your employer can be held legally responsible when someone from outside the business harasses you while you are working, if it hadn't taken all reasonable steps to prevent it. That applies face to face and online, and it covers other kinds of harassment too, such as racial harassment.

What this could look like in real life

A few illustrations (not real cases) of situations the new rules are designed for:

• A bar worker is repeatedly groped by a regular. Management laughs it off and keeps serving him. That kind of inaction could now mean the employer is liable.
• A care worker gets sexual comments from a client's relative and is told to “just ignore it, that's what he's like”. The law no longer accepts answers like that.
• A sales rep is bombarded with explicit messages by a client after a work event. Their employer should have a way of dealing with it, and should deal with it.
• An office worker reports a manager's behaviour and is suddenly “not a good fit for the team”. Being punished for speaking up can be a claim in its own right.

What changes for you, in a nutshell

• You don't have to wait for a pattern of harassment. One incident can be enough if your employer hadn't taken the steps it should have.
• If your employer ignored its duty to prevent sexual harassment, any compensation you are awarded can be increased by up to a quarter.
• Reporting sexual harassment, whether it happened to you or a colleague, counts as whistleblowing, so you are protected from being punished for reporting it.
• The protection applies from your first day in the job, for employees and most workers.
• It isn't backdated. Harassment by a customer or client before 30th October 2026 is unlikely to be covered by the new rules, although your employer has been under a duty to prevent sexual harassment since October 2024.

If it has happened to you: a five-step plan

1. Get safe first. If you have been assaulted or threatened, you can go to the police as well as your employer.

2. Write it down while it's fresh. What happened, when, where and who saw it. Keep copies of related messages, emails and screenshots.

3. Make it official. Tell your manager or HR by email, or raise a formal grievance. If the harasser was a customer or client, say so, and ask what your employer will do to stop it happening again.

4. Watch the clock. You normally have six months less one day from the last incident to start the formal process (through Acas early conciliation) if it happened on or after 1st October 2026, or three months less one day if it happened earlier. An internal investigation does not stop the clock. More on the new tribunal deadline.

5. Don't go it alone. Most cases like this end in a negotiated settlement rather than an employment tribunal hearing. Employers also tend to take you far more seriously when they can see you know your rights and your deadlines.

How Grapple Law can help

Grapple Law can help you work out, for free, whether you may have a case and what your deadline is. It can then help you put your complaint in writing, draft a grievance and write to your employer to push for a fair settlement, all in plain English and at a fraction of the cost of a traditional solicitor.

If something has happened to you, don't just wait and hope it will all blow over. Check out for free at grapple.law whether you may have a case.

Find out more

• Sexual harassment at work: your rights
• Reporting sexual harassment
• Sexual harassment compensation

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