Do you qualify to claim?

Ordinary unfair dismissal currently requires two years of continuous service. That is about to change. From 1st January 2027 the qualifying period falls to six months, and the cap on compensation is removed altogether. Employees already in post on that date with six months behind them are protected immediately.

Until then the two-year rule still bites, and if you are close to the line the exact date your employment started and the exact date it ended both matter a great deal.

What makes a dismissal unfair

An employer must show a potentially fair reason for the dismissal, and must then show that dismissing you was a reasonable response and that a fair procedure was followed. The five potentially fair reasons are conduct, capability, redundancy, breach of a statutory restriction, and some other substantial reason.

Two dismissals for identical conduct can be one fair and one unfair depending entirely on the process. No proper investigation, no chance to answer the allegation, no right of appeal, a decision taken by someone who had already made their mind up: any of these can make an otherwise defensible dismissal unfair.

ACAS early conciliation

Before a tribunal claim can be lodged you must notify ACAS and go through early conciliation. This is compulsory, it is free, and the clock stops while it runs, which effectively extends the deadline. It is not a formality worth skipping, because a claim lodged without an ACAS certificate is rejected.

Tribunals in Scotland

Employment law itself is largely reserved and so the substantive rules are the same as in England and Wales, but the tribunals sitting in Scotland are administered separately, with hearing centres in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee and Inverness. There are no tribunal fees. A Scottish employment judge applies Scottish procedure and, where a contractual point arises, Scots contract law.

What a claim is worth

Compensation has two parts. The basic award is calculated from age, length of service and weekly pay, in much the same way as statutory redundancy pay. The compensatory award reflects actual financial loss, principally lost earnings until you find comparable work.

The compensatory award is currently capped at fifty-two weeks of gross pay or a statutory maximum of £123,543, whichever is lower. That maximum is uprated each April, and the figure given is correct at 12th August 2026. From 1st January 2027 the cap disappears entirely.

Awards are reduced where you contributed to your own dismissal, and reduced again where a tribunal concludes you would probably have been dismissed anyway had a fair procedure been followed. You are also expected to look for new work, and a failure to do so reduces what you recover.

Resigning: constructive dismissal

If an employer breaches your contract so seriously that you are entitled to treat yourself as dismissed, resigning can amount to a dismissal in law. These claims are notoriously difficult. The breach has to be fundamental, you have to resign in response to it, and you have to resign promptly rather than carrying on and appearing to accept the position. Take advice before resigning, not afterwards.

What to do now

1. Write down the date your employment ended and count three months less one day from it.
2. Notify ACAS of early conciliation, which stops the clock.
3. Appeal internally as well, but never instead.
4. Gather the contract, the invitation letters, the notes of any meeting and the dismissal letter.
5. Start looking for other work and keep a record of your applications.