2026 horizon scan — key legal & regulatory changes ahead

2026 promises to be another demanding year for in‑house legal and compliance teams with major legislative and regulatory reforms converging across consumer protection, data governance and employment law. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Act, Data Use and Access Act (DUA Act) and Employment Rights Act 2025 (ERA) will all begin to significantly reshape operational, contractual and workforce practices.

Many organisations will need to update systems, revisit policies and prepare for entirely new compliance obligations as these frameworks take effect.

Here, Victoria Trigwell, Eleanore Beard and Kate Venables from our specialist in-house lawyers and general counsel team explore the key developments to have on your radar and what they mean for your organisation in the year ahead.

The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Act 2024

From spring 2026, any business that offers subscription contracts to consumers will be required to comply with new rules under sections 253 to 281 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Act 2024. 

Businesses will be required to provide consumers with certain information before a subscription contract is entered into including ‘key pre-contract information’, ‘full pre-contract information’ and reminder notices. 

Businesses should pay close attention to the rules governing reminder notices which — where applicable — require the business to issue notices linked to the ongoing renewal of the subscription. These are intended to ensure that consumers remain aware of their subscription commitments, have a meaningful opportunity to review and — if they wish — bring the contract to an end. For many businesses, these requirements will necessitate changes to internal systems and customer communications to ensure compliance with the legal framework.

Interpreting the new rules, assessing how they interact with current practices and guiding your organisation through the necessary process and system changes will be central to achieving compliance.

Data protection 

The DUA Act is entering its final implementation phase with secondary legislation expected to be fully in force by June 2026. It introduces amendments to the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 to create a more flexible approach to automated decision-making, new lawful bases for processing under recognised legitimate interests and revised marketing rules for charities, allowing for a charitable purpose soft opt in. 

In November 2025, the European Commission unveiled the Digital Omnibus Package, aiming to simplify compliance and reduce regulatory burdens of the GDPR, the EU AI Act and the EU Data Act. The proposed changes are in draft form but are likely to be discussed over 2026 and will be interesting to follow. Key proposals include narrowing the definition of personal data, clarifying the scope of special category data and introducing explicit exemptions for AI-related processing under legitimate interests.

While the EU AI Act came into force in August 2024, the obligations for high-risk AI systems will only apply from August 2026. These include requirements for risk management, transparency and human oversight which will reshape AI governance across all sectors.

The core provisions of the EU Data Act addressing data sharing and portability came into effect in September 2025. 2026 sees the interoperability requirements for cloud services and ‘access by design’ obligations for connected products, reinforcing the principle that data accessibility must be embedded into product architecture.

For in-house legal teams, this is a pivotal moment to lead on governance strategy, embed privacy by design and engage proactively with emerging standards.

Employment Rights Act 2025

The ERA is set to bring about significant and fundamental change to the UK employment law landscape with key changes landing in April and October 2026 and into 2027.  

Here, we set out a high-level overview of what to prepare for and when: 

April 2026 

• Protective awards double — the penalty for failure to comply with the collective consultation regime, currently capped at 90 days’ pay per affected employee, will double to 180 days’ pay, making the consequences of non-compliance significantly more costly for businesses.
• Increasing availably of Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) — the existing regime is changing so that SSP will be payable from day one of absence (currently payable from day four) and the lower earnings limit eligibility requirement is being removed. This means that all eligible employees will be entitled to SSP, regardless of earnings.
• Sexual harassment whistleblowing protections — specific reference will be explicitly made to in a bid to assure victims of sexual harassment that they’ll receive whistleblowing protections.
• Day-one paternity & unpaid parental leave — removal of length of service requirements for paternity and parental leave (currently 26 weeks and one year respectively) so that they become a day one right.
• Fair Work Agency established — new public authority, expected to be known as the Fair Work Agency, will have a range of enforcement powers, including in relation to National Minimum Wage and SSP, modern slavery, the employment agency rules and, in particular, holiday pay. It’s also anticipated that the Fair Work Agency will be able to bring claims on behalf of a worker and provide legal assistance to claimants.
• Trade union reforms — electronic balloting is expected to be introduced, aimed at increasing member participation by making voting for industrial action easier and quicker. Following this, the existing threshold of 50% turnout required for industrial action ballots is to be removed and replaced with a simple majority. Mandates for industrial action will be increased from six to 12 months and notice for industrial action will be reduced from 14 to ten days. 

October 2026

• Fire & rehire curtailed — dismissals arising from fire and rehire practices (e.g. to force through contractual change programmes) will be automatically unfair unless it falls within a narrowly construed financial distress exception.
• Employment tribunal time limits — time limits for employment tribunal litigation will be extended from three to six months, dramatically increasing the timeframe within which claimants can decide to pursue litigation.
• ‘All’ reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment — a significant raising of the bar in respect of the existing duty, employers will be required to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. In addition, employers will be liable for third party harassment and prevented from using non-disclosure agreements to stop workers from making allegations of sexual harassment and/or discrimination.
• Union rights & workplace access — contracts of employment will need to specify that employees have the right to join a trade union.  In addition, trade union officials will have a right to request access workplaces for the purposes of recruitment and collective bargaining purposes. Employers may negotiate an access agreement or the union will be able to apply to the CAC for consideration under a statutory process. However, the presumption will be that union officials should be able to access a workplace provided that it doesn’t unreasonably interfere with an employer’s business.
• Enhanced protections for workers taking industrial action — new protections in respect of workers receiving detriments short of dismissal in addition to a strengthened protection against dismissal for taking part in industrial action will be introduced.  Also, ‘union equality representatives’ will be introduced, a workplace role that’ll trigger a right to paid time off to provide advice on equality matters to members and consult with employers. Extended protections against blacklisting will also come into force. 

2027 

• Gender pay gap & menopause action plans — it’ll become mandatory for large employers (250 employees or more) to have a report on equality action plans to address gender pay gaps and outline measures to support colleagues experiencing symptoms of the menopause.
• Unfair dismissal qualifying period reduced — from 1 January 2027, the qualifying period for unfair dismissal will be reduced from the existing two years to six months. Also, the cap on unfair dismissal compensation will be removed, increasing the financial liability for employers in the context of high earners.
• Increased protections for pregnant women & new mothers — further details are awaited but it’s anticipated that new regulations will comprise a prohibition against dismissal of pregnant women, those on maternity leave and those within six months of returning to work from a period of family leave, except in specific circumstances.
• Collective redundancy consultation threshold revised — a new threshold test for collective consultation will be introduced in addition to the existing requirement to enter into collective consultation if there are 20 or more redundancies proposed at one establishment within a period of 90 days. This will be defined in regulations but is expected to involve counting at risk employees across all locations. Consultation will also be sought as to whether to double the minimum consultation period from 45 to 90 days where an employer proposes to dismiss 100 or more employees.  
• Zero hours contracts — unless contracted out via a collective agreement, employers will be required to make a guaranteed hours offer to qualifying workers based on average hours worked over a reference period as opposed to utilising zero hours contracts.  
• Changes to flexible working — in an enhancement to the existing statutory regime, employers must act reasonably in deciding upon the reason for refusing a flexible working request and communicating the rationale for the decision to the employee.
• Introduction of a statutory right to bereavement leave — the Government will have the power to introduce a day one, statutory right to at least one week’s unpaid bereavement leave for employees, including in relation to pregnancy loss before 24 weeks of pregnancy. Further regulations are anticipated to set out the details. 

The scale of change ahead makes it essential to ensure that your stakeholders are kept informed and are prepared to tackle the numerous developments in terms of the impact on policy, project planning, operations and risk.   

Talk to us

If you’d like tailored guidance on how these reforms could affect your organisation, our in‑house lawyers and general counsel team — comprising specialists in a wide range of areas including data protection and employment law — can support you with strategic planning, policy redesign, compliance readiness and implementation. They work alongside your teams to interpret new regulatory duties, assess operational impact and develop practical approaches to managing risk across your business.

To understand more about how our team can work with you, give us a call today on 0333 004 4488, email hello@brabners.com or complete our contact form below.