Employment tribunal claims and awards latest statistics
HM Courts & Tribunals Service publishes statistics which illustrate the nature of activity before the employment tribunals on a quarterly and annual basis.
In addition to quarterly statistics, annual statistics, published each autumn, are provided which cover the 12-month period from the beginning of April to the end of the following March. This checklist sets out annual statistics for number of claims brought, average awards and costs awards going back to 2014/15.
Numbers of claims brought
These figures are for the number of claims received by employment tribunals from April to March of the following year. The total claims figure for each year is the number of ET1s accepted. As many ET1s contain more than one complaint, the figures in each column add up to more than the total claims
Figures for 2021/22
On 9 June 2022, the Ministry of Justice published quarterly tribunal statistics for January to March 2022 and annual tribunal statistics for 2021/22. The report explains that employment tribunals transitioned to a new database between March and May 2021. Since then, it has not been possible to gather employment tribunal case data on a consistent basis, and therefore the annual totals for 2021/22 are not available. The jurisdictional breakdown of claims for 2021/22 is subject to further analysis but will be presented when available
2020/21 | 2019/20 | 2018/19 | 2017/18 | 2016/17 | 2015/16 | 2014/15 | |
Total claims | 117,926 | 103,973 | 121,075 | 109,698 | 88,476 | 83,031 | 61,308 |
Age discrimination | 15,336 | 2,434 | 2,493 | 6,770 | 7,628 | 12,636 | 1,087 |
Breach of contract | 14,836 | 14,974 | 14,239 | 12,186 | 7,934 | 9,279 | 8,250 |
Disability discrimination | 7,430 | 8,178 | 6,919 | 5,477 | 3,794 | 3,470 | 3,106 |
Equal pay | 8,509 | 24,689 | 27,730 | 35,558 | 10,467 | 17,063 | 9,621 |
National minimum wage | 269 | 303 | 350 | 362 | 223 | 239 | 161 |
Part-time Regulations | 2,766 | 319 | 301 | 341 | 374 | 215 | 304 |
Pregnancy detriment/ dismissal | 1,435 | 1,636 | 1,810 | 1,357 | 872 | 865 | 790 |
Public interest disclosure (whistleblowing) | 3,128 | 2,827 | 2,599 | 2,191 | 1,497 | 1,400 | 1,395 |
Race discrimination | 4,175 | 3,967 | 3,589 | 2,991 | 2,240 | 2,002 | 1,858 |
Redundancy – inform & consult | 7,072 | 7,311 | 5,657 | 4,097 | 2,410 | 4,085 | 2,307 |
Redundancy pay | 6,453 | 6,573 | 5,547 | 4,104 | 2,317 | 3,944 | 2,939 |
Religion or belief discrimination | 733 | 797 | 753 | 670 | 384 | 340 | 339 |
Sex discrimination | 5,172 | 6,260 | 9,427 | 5,522 | 8,841 | 5,380 | 4,471 |
Sexual orientation discrimination | 438 | 505 | 461 | 316 | 197 | 188 | 189 |
TUPE – inform & consult | 1,035 | 562 | 799 | 819 | 811 | 635 | 568 |
Unauthorised deductions from wages | 17,816 | 22,659 | 22,488 | 24,089 | 9,152 | 36,362 | 28,701 |
Unfair dismissal | 23,904 | 21,592 | 21,592 | 17,714 | 12,038 | 13,302 | 12,652 |
Working time | 20,867 | 26,680 | 49,725 | 16,950 | 30,313 | 36,813 | 31,451 |
Written pay statement | 887 | 803 | 2,237 | 484 | 263 | 375 | 282 |
Written reasons for dismissal | 356 | 354 | 223 | 257 | 159 | 210 | 209 |
Written terms and conditions | 1,114 | 1,287 | 1,417 | 1,200 | 976 | 1,023 | 925 |
Others | 43,057 | 20,679 | 18,359 | 29,276 | 41,055 | 28,253 | 18,361 |
Average awards
The following highest, mean and median awards were made by the tribunals.
No average award figures are available for 2020/21 or 2021/22
(*The mean award is calculated by finding the total value of all awards made over the year and dividing by the number of cases in which awards were made.)
(**The median award is that which is in the middle of all the awards if they are arranged in order of value.)
2019/2020 | Highest award | Mean award* | Median award** |
Unfair dismissal | £118,842 | £10,812 | £6,646 |
Race discrimination | £30,330 | £9,801 | £8,040 |
Sex discrimination | £73,619 | £17,420 | £14,073 |
Disability discrimination | £265,719 | £27,043 | £13,000 |
Religious discrimination | £0 | £0 | £0 |
Sexual orientation discrimination | £96,645 | £27,936 | £9,245 |
Age discrimination | £243,636 | £38,794 | £11,791 |