Discrimination at Work: Compensation Guide

What is discrimination at work?

Discrimination at work is unlawful under the Equality Act 2010. It occurs when an employee is treated less favourably because of a protected characteristic, or when an apparently neutral practice disproportionately disadvantages a group with a protected characteristic (indirect discrimination).

The 9 protected characteristics

• Age
• Disability
• Gender reassignment
• Marriage and civil partnership
• Pregnancy and maternity
• Race (including colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin)
• Religion or belief
• Sex
• Sexual orientation

Types of discrimination

• Direct discrimination — Treating you less favourably because of a protected characteristic (e.g. not promoting you because of your age)
• Indirect discrimination — A policy applied to everyone that disproportionately disadvantages a group you belong to
• Harassment — Unwanted conduct related to a protected characteristic that violates dignity or creates a hostile environment
• Victimisation — Treating you unfairly because you have made (or supported) a discrimination complaint
• Discrimination arising from disability — Treating you unfavourably because of something connected to your disability
• Failure to make reasonable adjustments — Where a disabled person is substantially disadvantaged by a provision, criterion or practice, and the employer fails to make reasonable adjustments

No qualifying period for discrimination claims

Unlike unfair dismissal, you do not need 2 years of service to bring a discrimination claim. On day one of employment (or even before employment begins, for example during a discriminatory interview process), you have the right not to be discriminated against.

What compensation can you receive?

Discrimination compensation at tribunal includes:

1. Financial loss (uncapped)

Loss of earnings, past and future, including pension contributions. Unlike unfair dismissal, there is no cap — if you lose a highly-paid job due to discrimination and it takes years to find comparable work, all of that loss is recoverable in principle.

2. Injury to feelings (Vento bands)

Compensation for the distress, humiliation and impact on your personal life caused by the discrimination. Awards are guided by three "Vento bands" (updated periodically — current figures for 2025/26):

3. Personal injury / psychiatric injury

Where discrimination has caused a recognised psychiatric condition (e.g. clinical depression, anxiety disorder), a separate personal injury element can be claimed — assessed by medical evidence.

4. Aggravated damages

Where the employer's conduct was particularly high-handed, malicious or oppressive, tribunals can add aggravated damages on top.

5. Interest

Tribunals can award interest on discrimination compensation — currently 8% simple interest per annum from the date of the discriminatory act.

Discrimination and settlement agreements

Because discrimination awards are uncapped, employers facing strong discrimination claims are often willing to settle for significant sums. A discrimination claim significantly strengthens your negotiating position in settlement discussions — even where the primary claim might be unfair dismissal or redundancy.

If you believe discrimination was a factor in your treatment, always raise this with your solicitor — it may be the most valuable part of your case.

Intersectional discrimination

Most discrimination cases focus on a single protected characteristic — age, or race, or sex. But many people experience discrimination that does not fit neatly into one category. A Black woman may be treated in a way that reflects prejudices about her race and her sex simultaneously, in a combination that neither a white woman nor a Black man would face. This is intersectional discrimination, and it presents particular challenges within a legal framework built around single, discrete characteristics.

How the Equality Act 2010 approaches intersectionality

The Equality Act 2010 contains a provision for combined discrimination under section 14, which was intended to protect against less favourable treatment because of a combination of two protected characteristics. However, section 14 has never been brought into force by Parliament and remains "switched off" — meaning claimants cannot directly bring a combined discrimination claim under this section.

In practice, intersectional claims must be run as separate claims under each relevant characteristic. A claimant experiencing discrimination as a pregnant disabled woman, for example, would bring separate disability discrimination and pregnancy discrimination claims. Tribunals can — and do — consider how the two characteristics interact in making their findings, but the legal route requires pleading each strand individually.

How tribunals approach intersectional cases

Employment tribunals are increasingly alive to intersectionality as a concept, even without a direct statutory peg. Tribunals can compare treatment across multiple characteristics, consider whether an employer's conduct was influenced by a combination of attributes, and award compensation that reflects the full impact of overlapping discrimination. Specialist claimant solicitors are experienced in structuring intersectional claims to capture this complexity, and judges are trained to approach credibility and context with awareness of how multiple characteristics interact.

Proving discrimination: the burden of proof

One of the most important features of discrimination law is how the burden of proof operates. In most civil litigation, the claimant must prove their case on the balance of probabilities. Discrimination law works differently — and in a way that is more favourable to claimants.

The two-stage test

Under section 136 of the Equality Act 2010, the burden of proof in discrimination cases operates as follows:

1. Stage one — the claimant's burden: The claimant must first establish facts from which the tribunal could conclude, in the absence of any other explanation, that the respondent committed an act of discrimination. This is sometimes called the "prima facie case" stage. The claimant does not need to prove discrimination at this stage — only that there are facts consistent with it.
2. Stage two — the burden shifts: Once the claimant has cleared stage one, the burden moves to the employer to prove that the treatment was not because of the protected characteristic. If the employer cannot do this — if they cannot provide a non-discriminatory explanation that the tribunal believes — the claim succeeds.

What this means in practice

This reversed burden is powerful. An employer who treated a claimant less favourably, cannot identify a credible non-discriminatory reason, and whose explanation shifts or lacks documentary support is likely to lose. Circumstantial evidence — statistical data showing patterns of treatment, comparator evidence, timing of treatment after a protected characteristic became known — can all be enough to trigger the burden shift. You do not need to find a smoking-gun email saying "we dismissed her because of her age." Patterns and unexplained decisions are enough to shift the burden to the employer to explain themselves.

Compensation in discrimination cases

Discrimination compensation is among the most significant in employment law — both because awards are uncapped and because multiple heads of loss can combine to produce very substantial total figures. Understanding how compensation is calculated helps you assess the value of your claim and the strength of any settlement offer.

Financial loss

Financial loss in discrimination cases is calculated on the same basis as unfair dismissal — past lost earnings from the date of the discriminatory act to the tribunal hearing, and future projected losses beyond the hearing. Crucially, unlike unfair dismissal, there is no statutory cap on financial loss in discrimination cases. For senior employees or those in specialised fields where re-employment takes time, financial loss awards alone can run into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Injury to feelings — the Vento/Da'Bell bands updated for 2026

Injury to feelings awards compensate for the personal impact of discrimination — distress, humiliation, loss of dignity, and the effect on personal life. They are not symbolic figures; they can be substantial sums. The bands are updated annually in line with the Judicial College Guidelines and are referred to as the Vento bands (after the Court of Appeal case Vento v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police [2003]), further refined in Da'Bell v NSPCC [2010].

For claims with a relevant act occurring on or after 6 April 2026, the following bands apply:

The upper limit of the top band is not an absolute ceiling — tribunals can exceed it in truly exceptional cases. Interest at 8% per annum is added from the date of the discriminatory act to the date of judgment, which can add a material sum to injury to feelings awards in older cases.

Personal injury and psychiatric harm

Where discrimination has caused a diagnosed psychiatric condition — clinical depression, PTSD, anxiety disorder — a personal injury element can be claimed separately from injury to feelings. This requires medical evidence, typically a psychiatric report obtained for the proceedings. Personal injury damages in employment tribunal cases follow the same principles as personal injury claims in the civil courts and can significantly increase the total award.

Aggravated damages

Where the employer's conduct was particularly high-handed, malicious, insulting, or oppressive — or where the employer has acted in a way that compounds the original discrimination (for example, conducting a sham investigation or victimising the claimant for raising a complaint) — tribunals can award aggravated damages on top of the injury to feelings award. There is no fixed band for aggravated damages; they are assessed by reference to the specific conduct.