Workplace Discrimination Checker UK 2025 — Your Rights Under the Equality Act 2010
The Equality Act 2010 protects employees, workers, and job applicants from discrimination based on 9 protected characteristics. Discrimination at work is unlawful regardless of how long you have worked for your employer — there is no minimum service requirement. Use this checker to understand whether you may have experienced unlawful discrimination and what compensation is available.
Discrimination compensation is uncapped — unlike unfair dismissal. Awards include injury to feelings (Vento bands), financial loss, aggravated damages, and personal injury where health is affected. Contact ACAS for early conciliation within 3 months minus 1 day of the discriminatory act. Always take legal advice for discrimination claims.
The 9 Protected Characteristics Under the Equality Act 2010
| Protected characteristic | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Age | Protection against discrimination because of your age (or perceived age) — applies to all ages, not just older workers |
| Disability | Physical or mental impairment with long-term (12+ months) substantial adverse effect on ability to carry out normal activities |
| Gender reassignment | People who are proposing to undergo, are undergoing, or have undergone gender reassignment — no medical procedure required |
| Marriage / civil partnership | In employment only — protection from discrimination because you are married or in a civil partnership |
| Pregnancy and maternity | During pregnancy and the 26-week maternity period — unfavourable treatment connected to pregnancy is automatically unlawful |
| Race | Colour, nationality, and ethnic or national origins — including mixed race |
| Religion or belief | Any religion, lack of religion, or philosophical belief held with sufficient cogency and importance |
| Sex | Gender — applies to both women and men, including same-sex situations |
| Sexual orientation | Gay, lesbian, bisexual, or heterosexual orientation — includes perception and association |
Types of Discrimination
Direct Discrimination
Treating someone worse than you treat (or would treat) a comparable person because of a protected characteristic. For example, refusing to promote a woman because she is pregnant, or paying an older worker less for the same job.
Indirect Discrimination
Applying a provision, criterion, or practice (PCP) that applies to everyone but puts people with a protected characteristic at a particular disadvantage — and which cannot be justified as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. For example, requiring full-time working when this disproportionately affects women (who are more likely to have childcare responsibilities).
Harassment
Unwanted conduct related to a protected characteristic that has the purpose or effect of violating dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment. Sexual harassment has its own specific definition. From October 2024, employers have a proactive duty to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace.
Victimisation
Treating someone badly because they have made a discrimination complaint, supported someone else's complaint, or are believed to have done so. For example, passing someone over for promotion because they raised a grievance about discriminatory treatment.
Vento Bands — Injury to Feelings Compensation 2025
| Band | Range | When applicable |
|---|---|---|
| Lower Vento band | £1,100 – £11,200 | Less serious single acts; where the impact was relatively minor |
| Middle Vento band | £11,200 – £33,700 | Serious incidents not meriting top band; sustained or repeated acts |
| Upper Vento band | £33,700 – £56,200 | Most serious cases — lengthy campaigns, psychiatric injury |
Vento bands are updated annually from 5 April. These figures apply from 6 April 2025. In exceptional cases, awards above the upper band have been made. Injury to feelings is awarded on top of financial losses — there is no cap on the total award.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes — 3 months minus 1 day from the date of the discriminatory act (or the last act in a series). Before going to tribunal, you must contact ACAS for early conciliation first, which pauses the clock. Unlike unfair dismissal, there is no 2-year service requirement for discrimination claims — you can bring a claim from day one of employment, or even during a job application process.
Yes — these are separate claims and can be run alongside each other in the same tribunal proceedings. If you were dismissed and the reason involved a protected characteristic (for example, dismissed because of pregnancy or disability), you may have both a discrimination claim (uncapped compensation) and an unfair dismissal claim (capped compensatory award).
Both the employer (vicariously liable for acts of employees done in the course of employment) and individual employees who committed the discriminatory act can be held liable. The employer has a defence if they can show they took all reasonable steps to prevent the discrimination. Individual employees can be joined as respondents to a tribunal claim and can be ordered to pay their own contribution to the award.
Yes. If the discrimination caused you financial loss — for example, you were dismissed and had a period of unemployment, or you were not promoted — you can claim compensation for past financial loss and future financial loss (if you have not yet found equivalent work). There is no cap on the total award. You must mitigate your loss by taking reasonable steps to find alternative employment.