Being told your role is “at risk” is one of the most stressful things that can happen at work. The good news is that redundancy is tightly regulated. Your employer has to follow a fair process, and in most cases you are entitled to a minimum payment. Knowing how to deal with redundancy puts you in a much stronger position, whether you want to keep your job, negotiate a better exit or challenge the decision.
Tight deadline: if your employment ends on or after 1 October 2026, you normally have six months less one day to start a tribunal claim, beginning with Acas early conciliation. Before that date the limit was three months less one day.
Step 1: Check it is a genuine redundancy
In law, a redundancy happens when an employer closes the business, closes your workplace, or needs fewer people to do a particular kind of work. If your job still exists and someone is simply being brought in to replace you, that is not a genuine redundancy, and the dismissal may be unfair.
Step 2: Take part in consultation
Your employer must consult you before any decision is final. That means explaining why roles are at risk, how people are being selected and what alternatives have been considered. Use the meetings. Ask for the selection criteria and your scores in writing, suggest alternatives such as reduced hours or a different role, and keep notes.
If 20 or more redundancies are proposed at one establishment within 90 days, collective consultation rules apply. Consultation must start at least 30 days before the first dismissal (or 45 days where 100 or more roles are affected), usually through a trade union or elected employee representatives.
Step 3: Look hard at how you were selected
Selection criteria should be objective and applied consistently: skills, qualifications, performance records and disciplinary records are common. You must not be selected because of age, sex, race, disability, pregnancy or maternity leave, trade union activity, whistleblowing or part-time status. Selection on any of those grounds can be automatically unfair or discriminatory, and there is no minimum length of service for those claims.
Step 4: Consider any alternative job offered
Your employer should offer you any suitable alternative vacancy. If you accept a different role you are entitled to a four-week trial period. If it genuinely does not suit you and you leave during the trial, you keep your right to redundancy pay. Turn down a suitable role without good reason and you may lose that right, so put any concerns in writing.
Step 5: Work out what you are owed
If you have at least two years’ continuous service you are entitled to statutory redundancy pay. It is based on your age, length of service (capped at 20 years) and weekly pay:
- half a week’s pay for each full year worked while under 22
- one week’s pay for each full year worked between 22 and 40
- one and a half weeks’ pay for each full year worked aged 41 or over
Weekly pay is capped. From 6 April 2026 the cap is £751 in England, Scotland and Wales, which makes the maximum statutory payment £22,530. Your contract may give you more, so check it and any staff handbook.
You are also entitled to notice (one week if you have worked there between one month and two years, then one week for each full year of service up to 12 weeks, unless your contract says more), pay for untaken holiday, and, if you have two years’ service, reasonable paid time off to look for work during your notice. The first £30,000 of a genuine redundancy payment is usually tax-free.
Step 6: Think carefully before signing a settlement agreement
Many employers offer an enhanced payment in return for a settlement agreement, which waives your right to bring claims. By law you must receive independent legal advice before it is binding, and employers commonly contribute towards the solicitor’s fee. A solicitor will check whether the sum is fair given any claims you are giving up, and can often negotiate it upwards.
Step 7: If the process was unfair, act quickly
If you believe the redundancy was a sham, the selection was unfair or the consultation was a box-ticking exercise, raise a written appeal with your employer first. If that fails, you can bring an employment tribunal claim. Before you can do so you must notify Acas and go through early conciliation. Under the Employment Rights Act 2025, the deadline for most claims is six months less one day where employment ends on or after 1 October 2026 (it was three months less one day before that). Tribunals apply these limits strictly, so do not wait until the last minute.
At present, most employees need two years’ service to claim ordinary unfair dismissal. Under the Employment Rights Act 2025 that falls to six months for dismissals taking effect on or after 1 January 2027. Discrimination and automatically unfair dismissal claims have no service requirement at all.
Frequently asked questions
Can I be made redundant while on maternity leave?
Yes, but you have extra protection. If a suitable alternative vacancy exists you must be offered it ahead of other at-risk colleagues, and that protection extends into the period after you return.
Do I have to work my notice?
Not always. Your employer can pay you in lieu of notice if your contract allows it, or agree it with you. Either way you should receive the money.
What if my employer is insolvent and cannot pay?
You can apply to the government’s Redundancy Payments Service for statutory redundancy pay, some unpaid wages, notice pay and holiday pay.
Getting help
If you think your selection was unfair, or you have been offered a settlement agreement, employment solicitors can check where you stand and what your claim may be worth. If you have already lost your job, our guide on what to do if you have been unfairly dismissed covers the next steps.
Sources
Checked against the law in England and Wales on 30 September 2026.