Duty to prevent sexual harassment: UK employer guide (2026)

In short

Since 26 October 2024, every UK employer has had a legal duty to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of its employees.
From 30 October 2026 that becomes all reasonable steps, and it covers harassment by clients, customers and the public.
The duty is anticipatory: you have to act before anything happens, not just respond to complaints.
If a harassment claim succeeds and you breached the duty, compensation can go up by as much as 25%. The EHRC can also enforce it directly.

The law now

The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 added a new duty to the Equality Act. Since 26 October 2024, employers must take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their employees in the course of their employment.

It is a preventative duty. Having a complaints procedure and dealing with complaints when they arrive is not enough. You are expected to think about where harassment could happen in your workplace and take steps to stop it before it does.

What is "reasonable" depends on your organisation: its size, its resources, the kind of work and the risks involved. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has published technical guidance that tribunals take into account, and a shorter eight-step guide for employers.

What changes on 30 October 2026

The Employment Rights Act 2025 strengthens the duty in two ways:

"Reasonable steps" becomes "all reasonable steps". If there was a reasonable step you could have taken and didn't, you haven't met the duty. Doing some sensible things is no longer a defence on its own.
Employers become liable for harassment by third parties. If a client, customer, patient or member of the public harasses one of your employees, you can be liable unless you took all reasonable steps to prevent it.

The government has said it will make regulations setting out steps that count as reasonable. Those are expected after consultation, not in time for 30 October, so for now the EHRC guidance is the best indication of what a tribunal will expect.

Harassment by clients and customers

The third-party change matters most if your staff deal with people from outside the organisation:

hospitality, bars and events
retail and customer service
health and social care
agencies, consultancies and other client-facing professional services
anyone working in clients' homes or premises

These are often the staff who are hardest to reach: shift workers, people without a work email, people who are never at a desk. Whatever you put in place has to work for them, not just for the office.

Practical steps include making clear to customers what behaviour is not accepted, giving staff a way to step away from or refuse to serve someone, recording incidents, and checking in regularly with front-line staff about what they are dealing with.

What "all reasonable steps" looks like

The EHRC's guide for employers sets out eight steps. Treat them as the minimum to work through:

Develop an effective anti-harassment policy, covering third parties, and make sure people know about it.
Engage your staff. Find out what is actually happening, for example through one-to-ones, staff surveys and exit interviews.
Assess and reduce the risk in your workplace. See the risk assessment below.
Make reporting easy, including a way to raise concerns anonymously.
Train your people, including managers on how to respond to a complaint.
Handle complaints properly: promptly, fairly and without victimising the person who complained.
Deal with harassment by third parties, with the steps you would take for staff adapted for clients and customers.
Monitor and evaluate. Check whether the steps are working, and keep a record.

Steps 2 and 8 are where many small employers fall down. A policy that nobody reads and a training session from two years ago say little about whether your people feel safe now.

The risk assessment

The EHRC guidance says an employer is unlikely to meet the duty without assessing the risk of sexual harassment in its workplace. A useful assessment asks:

Where and when could harassment happen? Late shifts, lone working, travel, work events, alcohol, home visits.
Who is most at risk? Junior staff, people on insecure contracts, people working with the public.
Are there power imbalances, such as a few people controlling shifts, pay or progression?
What have staff told you, formally or informally? What do exit interviews say?
What will you do about each risk, who is responsible, and when will you review it?

Write it down, date it and review it, at least yearly and whenever something changes.

Related changes in 2026

6 April 2026: reporting sexual harassment became a protected disclosure under whistleblowing law. Workers who raise it are protected from detriment and dismissal.
October 2026: the time limit for most employment tribunal claims is increasing from three months to six, so claims can be brought later than before.
1 January 2027: the qualifying period for unfair dismissal falls from two years to six months.

See Employment Rights Act 2025: key dates for the full timeline.

What happens if you get it wrong

Higher compensation. If an employee wins a sexual harassment claim and you breached the prevention duty, the tribunal must consider increasing compensation by up to 25%.
EHRC enforcement. The EHRC can investigate and require you to take action, even if no individual has made a claim.
The harassment itself. People leave, teams lose trust, and in a small business one bad situation can affect everyone.

A checklist for this month

Update your anti-harassment policy so it covers clients, customers and the public, and send it to everyone.
Do a written harassment risk assessment, including third-party risks, and put a review date on it.
Give people more than one way to report, including one that doesn't go through their line manager.
Brief managers on what to do when someone raises a concern.
Tell client-facing staff what they can do if a customer's behaviour crosses a line, and back them when they do.
Start asking your team regularly how things are, in a way they can answer honestly, and keep a record.
Record what you did and when. If you are ever asked, the record is your evidence.

Questions

When does the "all reasonable steps" duty start?

On 30 October 2026, under the Employment Rights Act 2025. Before then the duty is to take "reasonable steps", which has applied since 26 October 2024.

Does the duty apply to small employers?

Yes. It applies to every employer, whatever its size. What counts as reasonable depends on your size and resources, so a ten-person business is not expected to do what a large company does, but it is expected to do something real.

Am I responsible if a customer harasses one of my staff?

From 30 October 2026, yes, if you did not take all reasonable steps to prevent it. Employers become liable for harassment of their employees by third parties such as clients, customers, patients and members of the public.

Can an employee bring a claim just because we have no policy?

No. The prevention duty is not a standalone claim. It matters when a sexual harassment claim succeeds: the tribunal can then increase compensation by up to 25% if you breached the duty. The Equality and Human Rights Commission can also take enforcement action on its own, even when no one has been harassed.

Do we need a written risk assessment?

The law does not say "risk assessment" in terms, but the EHRC guidance says an employer is unlikely to meet the duty without assessing the risks in its workplace. Writing it down is the simplest way to show you did it.

Is an anonymous survey enough?

No single step is enough. Listening to staff, including anonymously, is one of the steps the EHRC expects, alongside a policy, training, a reporting route, handling complaints properly and checking that it all works.

Sources

This guide is general information about the law in England, Wales and Scotland as we understand it on the date above. It isn’t legal advice. Speak to an employment lawyer about your situation.

The duty to prevent sexual harassment at work