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Flexible Working: UK Government Confirms Next Steps on Employment Rights Act 2025 Reforms
The UK Government has now published its response to the consultation launched earlier this year on the Employment Rights Act 2025 (‘ERA 2025’) reforms to the right to request flexible working. Although further regulations are awaited, the detail of the changes is beginning to take shape.
Background
Flexible working has been the subject of employment law reform in recent years, including changes made in April 2024 (see our previous article here), which made the right to request flexible working a day one right for employees and introduced a requirement for employers to consult before refusing a request.
The ERA 2025 builds on that framework and introduces three key changes:
- “Reasonableness” requirement – An employer will only be able to reject a statutory flexible working request on one of the eight statutory business grounds where it is “reasonable” to do so.
- Notification – If an employer refuses a request, the notification must state the ground(s) for refusing the application and explain why the employer considers that it is reasonable to refuse the application on that ground.
- New statutory process – Secondary legislation will set out steps that an employer must take in order to comply with its obligation to consult an employee before rejecting a request.
These reforms form part of the Government’s commitment to improving access to flexible working and encouraging more constructive discussion between employers and employees. While this is not a complete rewrite of the laws, employers will be required to follow a more structured statutory process when dealing with requests.
Earlier this year, the Government launched a consultation focused on the proposed new mandatory consultation process for employers where they are considering rejecting a statutory flexible working request. The Government recently published its response to the consultation on September 15, 2026, which confirms its intention to proceed with the ERA 2025 reforms and provides further insight on what we can expect for the new consultation process.
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