Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Related legal acts

Key definition

Unfair dismissal definition

What does Unfair dismissal mean? In practice, unfair dismissal describes an employee’s statutory claim that their employment was terminated without a fair reason and/or a fair procedure. In England & Wales and Scotland it is governed by the Employment Rights Act 1996; in Northern Ireland by the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996; and in Ireland by the Unfair Dismissals Acts 1977–2015. Employers must show a potentially fair reason (conduct, capability, redundancy, statutory restriction, or some other substantial reason) and that dismissal fell within the range of reasonable responses after a reasonable investigation and a fair process. In Great Britain, compliance with...

Worker status in Great Britain: statutory definition, limb b personal service and client/customer tests, purposive interpretation, leading cases, protected rights, and contrasts with employee status and tax classification

Published by a LexisNexis Employment expert

Practice notes

This Practice Note considers how 'worker' is defined under the Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA 1996), alongside other employment statutes.

Key concepts

For the purposes of employment law, someone supplying labour or services to another may fall into one of the following:

a worker, which brings specific statutory protections under employment law
an employee (see Practice Note: Employee status), attracting further employment law entitlements (eg protection from unfair dismissal, maternity leave and redundancy rights)
neither a worker nor an employee (ie self-employed, or an independent contractor), in which case employment law affords no rights

Everyone with employee status also satisfies the statutory meaning of 'worker' for the purposes of the wider category's protections. However, not every worker falls within the definition of 'employee'. Accordingly, a person who does not achieve employee status may nonetheless be a 'worker'. For a quick-reference guide to the respective rights of employees and workers, see: Employees and workers: checklist of rights. For tax purposes, an individual is categorised as either employed or self-employed; Employees therefore benefit from all worker protections as well as the additional rights listed above, whereas self-employed independent contractors fall outside employment law for these purposes, despite providing services to another party...

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Web page updated on 22/05/2026

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