Dismissal: UK employment law

Essential points

• A dismissal is when the employer ends a contract of employment. Dismissals can be both fair and unfair. Employers have legal obligations to fulfil if they wish to conclude a fair dismissal.
• Employees who are unfairly dismissed may bring a claim in an employment tribunal. Such claims can be settled by the employer via a settlement agreement, by a conciliation process.
• To challenge an unfair dismissal, the employee generally must have worked for the employer for 2 years (on or after 6 April 2012). This is known as the qualifying period. 
• Some settlement agreements involve contentious issues such as non-disclosure agreements (NDAs).
• There are five potentially fair reasons for dismissal. These are capability, conduct, redundancy, statutory illegality or ‘some other substantial reason' (SOSR).
• Even where an employer can show one of the five reasons, for a dismissal to be fair they must also follow a fair procedure.
• The different types of unfair dismissal claim are:
  • Ordinary unfair dismissal.
  • Automatic unfair dismissal.
  • Constructive dismissal. 

Please note
Under Labour government proposals a new right will mean employees will be protected from unfair dismissal from first day of their employment, in line with fair probationary arrangements.

This page outlines the current legislation for dismissal that should still be followed until any changes come into force. We will update this page once details of any changes are confirmed.