Pregnancy and Maternity Discrimination at Work: Your Rights in 2026

Key Points

What Counts as Pregnancy and Maternity Discrimination?

Section 18 of the Equality Act 2010 makes it unlawful for an employer to treat a woman unfavourably because of her pregnancy, because of an illness she suffers as a result of that pregnancy, or because she is taking, has taken or wants to take maternity leave.

Pregnancy and maternity is one of the nine protected characteristics. Unlike unfair dismissal, it carries no qualifying period. It applies from your first day, and it applies to job applicants and to many workers who are not employees.

The treatment does not have to be a dismissal. Removing you from a project, cancelling a promotion, marking you down in an appraisal, excluding you from meetings, refusing training, changing your duties or simply making your working life miserable can all amount to unfavourable treatment if the reason is connected to your pregnancy or your leave.

The protected period, and what happens after it

The protected period begins when your pregnancy begins. Under section 18(6) it ends at the end of your additional maternity leave, or on the day you return to work if that is earlier. If you have no right to maternity leave, it ends two weeks after the end of the pregnancy.

That used to be a hard stop, and it created an obvious gap: an employer who waited until a woman was back at her desk could argue the section 18 protection had run out. That gap closed on 1 January 2024, when the Equality Act 2010 (Amendment) Regulations 2023 changed section 18(2) to cover unfavourable treatment “in or after the protected period”.

In practice that means the following are now squarely within section 18: a poor appraisal written six months after your return that marks you down for pregnancy-related absence; a redundancy scoring exercise that counts sickness absence caused by your pregnancy; a bonus decision that penalises the year you were pregnant. The treatment happens after the protected period, but the reason for it sits inside the pregnancy.

Unfavourable treatment, not less favourable treatment

This is the single most useful feature of a section 18 claim, and it is the point most often missed.

An ordinary direct discrimination claim under section 13 requires a comparator: you must show you were treated less favourably than someone else. Section 18 requires only that you were treated unfavourably. You put yourself at a disadvantage and the reason was your pregnancy. There is no need to find a male colleague, or a non-pregnant colleague, who was treated better.

Section 18(7) then stops you running the same complaint twice: where treatment falls within section 18, you cannot also bring it as direct sex discrimination. In practice a good claim will plead both in the alternative, because the boundary between them is not always obvious at the outset.

Your employer has to know

A section 18 claim depends on the employer knowing, or the decision-maker knowing, about the pregnancy. If a manager genuinely did not know you were pregnant when the decision was taken, the treatment cannot have been “because of” the pregnancy.

That makes the moment you tell your employer, and the way you tell them, evidentially important. Tell them in writing, or follow up a conversation with an email confirming it. If the treatment starts shortly after that email, the timing does a lot of work for you.

The patterns we see most often

Certain fact patterns come up again and again in the claims that reach us:

• A promotion or pay rise that was “definitely happening” evaporates within weeks of the announcement.
• Performance management starts for the first time in a long and previously unblemished career.
• A restructure appears during maternity leave, and the employee hears about it late or not at all.
• The job is quietly reorganised while she is away, and there is “no longer a role” on her return.
• A flexible working request on return is refused without any genuine consideration.
• Pregnancy-related sickness absence is counted against her under an attendance policy.

That last one is worth spelling out. Absence caused by a pregnancy-related illness during the protected period must be disregarded. Counting it towards absence triggers, or using it in redundancy scoring, is unfavourable treatment because of the pregnancy.

“The commonest mistake I see is an employer who thinks the risk ends when maternity leave ends. It does not. Since the 2024 amendment I have run claims where the discriminatory act happened nine months after the client came back, because the reason for it was pregnancy-related absence the employer never properly discounted. If the reason traces back to the pregnancy, section 18 is still live.”

Tom Street Principal Solicitor, Tom Street & Co.

Dismissal, Redundancy and the 18-Month Protection

Dismissal is automatically unfair from day one

If you are dismissed, or selected for redundancy, for a reason connected with your pregnancy, childbirth or maternity leave, the dismissal is automatically unfair under section 99 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 and regulation 20 of the Maternity and Parental Leave etc Regulations 1999.

“Automatically unfair” means the tribunal does not ask whether the employer acted reasonably. Once you prove the reason, the dismissal is unfair. It also means the usual qualifying period does not apply: you can claim on your first day.

Almost every pregnancy dismissal gives you two claims, and it matters which one you push:

• Automatically unfair dismissal under the Employment Rights Act 1996. Compensation is a basic award plus a compensatory award, and the compensatory award is capped at the lower of £123,543 or 52 weeks’ gross pay. That cap disappears from 1 January 2027.
• Pregnancy and maternity discrimination under section 18. No cap at all, plus injury to feelings, plus interest.

Run both. The discrimination claim is normally where the value sits, particularly for a lower earner whose capped compensatory award would be modest.

Redundancy: the protection changed on 6 April 2024

Regulation 10 of the Maternity and Parental Leave etc Regulations 1999 has always given women on maternity leave a priority right to a suitable alternative vacancy. The Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Act 2023 and the implementing regulations extended that right substantially with effect from 6 April 2024.

The protection now covers three connected windows:

Tell your employer the actual date of birth. If you do not, the 18 months runs from the expected week of childbirth instead, and a baby born late costs you protection at the far end.

What “suitable alternative vacancy” actually requires

Employers routinely get this wrong, and it is often the strongest point in a redundancy claim.

The right is to be offered a suitable alternative vacancy, not to be invited to apply for one. If a suitable vacancy exists anywhere in the business, or with an associated employer, it must be given to you ahead of other redundant colleagues. Putting you into a competitive interview against them is a breach of regulation 10, however fairly that interview is run.

The alternative role must be suitable and appropriate for you, and the terms must not be substantially less favourable than your old contract. A demotion, a pay cut or an unworkable location does not discharge the duty.

If regulation 10 is breached, the dismissal is automatically unfair. It will usually also be discrimination under section 18. For the detail, see our guides on redundancy during pregnancy and redundancy while on maternity leave.

What is coming next

Even the extended protection stops short of what campaigners and the Women and Equalities Committee have asked for, which is a near-ban on dismissal rather than a priority right. The Employment Rights Act 2025 provides the mechanism, and the government’s stated policy is to make dismissal of a pregnant employee or new mother automatically unfair except in specified circumstances, for at least six months after her return. Draft regulations are expected to take effect in 2027.

Time Off for Antenatal Care

What you are entitled to

Under sections 55 to 57 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, a pregnant employee has the right to paid time off during working hours for antenatal care, and the right not to have that time off unreasonably refused.

Antenatal care covers appointments with midwives, obstetricians, specialists and GPs connected with the health of you or your baby. It includes antenatal or parenting classes where a doctor or midwife has recommended them.

Three practical points that employers frequently dispute:

• Travelling time counts. The paid time off includes time spent getting to and from the appointment, not just the appointment itself.
• You are paid at your normal hourly rate. If you are not on a fixed salary, divide a week’s pay by your normal, or average, weekly working hours.
• Evidence can be requested, but not for the first appointment. After the first appointment your employer may ask to see a certificate confirming the pregnancy and an appointment card.

Appointments that are not medical, such as private relaxation, yoga or massage sessions arranged on your own initiative, are unlikely to qualify for paid time off.

Partners, fathers and the six and a half hour cap

Under section 57ZE of the Employment Rights Act 1996, the pregnant woman’s partner has the right to take time off to accompany her to two antenatal appointments. That time off is unpaid, and it is capped at six and a half hours per appointment.

The right covers a spouse, civil partner, the child’s father or parent, and a partner in an enduring relationship with the mother. It is a day-one right for employees, and agency workers qualify after 12 weeks in the same assignment.

Fertility treatment and IVF

The statutory right to paid antenatal time off does not begin until you are pregnant, so appointments for fertility investigation and treatment before that point are not covered. Many employers deal with them under sickness absence or a dedicated fertility policy.

The position changes at the point of implantation. From then until the pregnancy test date, a woman undergoing IVF is regarded as pregnant for discrimination purposes. If the implantation is unsuccessful, the protected period runs for a further two weeks after the day the pregnancy ends. Treating a woman unfavourably during that window because of the failed treatment can be pregnancy discrimination, and treating her unfavourably because she is having IVF at all can be sex discrimination.

If your employer refuses

Unreasonable refusal of antenatal time off, or failure to pay for it, is a standalone tribunal claim. The remedy is the pay you should have received, and the tribunal will make a declaration. The claim must reach the tribunal within 3 months minus 1 day of the appointment, subject to Acas early conciliation.

Refusal will very often also be unfavourable treatment under section 18, which is the more valuable claim. Bring both.

Maternity Leave, Pay and Coming Back to Work

Leave

Every pregnant employee is entitled to 52 weeks of statutory maternity leave: 26 weeks of ordinary maternity leave followed by 26 weeks of additional maternity leave. It is a day-one right, and length of service is irrelevant to it.

Two weeks of leave immediately after the birth are compulsory, and four weeks if you work in a factory. Your employer commits a criminal offence by allowing you to work during that period.

Pay

Statutory maternity pay is payable for up to 39 weeks: 90% of your average weekly earnings for the first six weeks, then the lower of 90% of average weekly earnings or £194.32 for the remaining 33 weeks.

To qualify you need 26 weeks’ continuous service by the end of the qualifying week, which is the 15th week before the expected week of childbirth, and average weekly earnings of at least the lower earnings limit, currently £129. If you do not qualify for statutory maternity pay you may still be able to claim Maternity Allowance from the Department for Work and Pensions.

Enhanced contractual maternity pay is a different matter, governed by your contract or policy. Withdrawing enhanced pay from one employee while paying it to others, or attaching conditions to it that were not applied before, is worth looking at closely. See our page on maternity pay and leave for the detail.

Neonatal care leave

The Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023 came into force on 6 April 2025. Where a baby is admitted to neonatal care within the first 28 days of life and the care lasts at least seven continuous days, each parent can take up to 12 weeks of neonatal care leave on top of maternity, paternity or adoption leave.

The leave is a day-one right. Statutory neonatal care pay is paid at £194.32 per week, or 90% of average weekly earnings if lower, subject to the usual service and earnings conditions. Penalising a parent for taking it is a straightforward detriment claim.

Keeping in touch days

You can work up to 10 keeping in touch days during maternity leave without ending your leave or losing statutory maternity pay for that week. They are entirely optional. Your employer cannot require you to work them, and you cannot insist on being given them, but pressuring you into them, or penalising you for declining, is unfavourable treatment.

The right to return to your job

Return from ordinary maternity leave gives you the right to come back to the same job, on the same terms. Return from additional maternity leave gives the same right, unless it is not reasonably practicable, in which case you must be offered a suitable and appropriate alternative on terms no less favourable.

“There have been changes while you were away” is not, on its own, a defence. If your role was reorganised out of existence during your leave without proper consultation, or handed permanently to your cover, that is where a claim usually starts. Our guide to returning from maternity leave covers the process in detail.

Health and Safety, Risk Assessments and Suspension

Under regulation 16 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, an employer whose workforce includes women of childbearing age must assess risks to new and expectant mothers where the work could involve harm to her or her baby. Once you notify your employer in writing that you are pregnant, have given birth in the last six months or are breastfeeding, that assessment must be specific to you.

The duty is not a paperwork exercise. Failing to carry out or act on a risk assessment for a pregnant employee is itself capable of amounting to unfavourable treatment under section 18, and tribunals treat it as a serious failing rather than an administrative slip.

Where a risk is identified, the employer must work through a sequence set out in sections 66 to 68 of the Employment Rights Act 1996:

1. Remove the risk by adjusting your working conditions or hours.
2. Offer suitable alternative work on terms not substantially less favourable, if the risk cannot be removed.
3. Suspend you on full pay if there is no suitable alternative work.

Suspension on maternity grounds is on full pay under section 68, not statutory sick pay and not statutory maternity pay. An employer who sends a pregnant employee home on SSP because her role is unsafe has almost certainly got it wrong, and unlawfully deducted her wages into the bargain. A doctor’s or midwife’s certificate advising that you should not work nights, or should avoid particular duties, must be acted on. See our guide to the pregnancy risk assessment.

Breastfeeding and Expressing Milk at Work

There is no standalone statutory right to paid time off to breastfeed or express milk, and no regulation that in terms requires an employer to provide a room for it. That is a genuine gap in UK law, and the Women and Equalities Committee has criticised it.

What does exist is still useful. The risk assessment duty extends to breastfeeding mothers, so once you notify your employer in writing that you are breastfeeding, the assessment must consider it. The Health and Safety Executive advises that employers should provide somewhere private, healthy and safe to express and store milk, and that a toilet is not a suitable place. Employers must provide somewhere suitable for a pregnant or breastfeeding worker to rest under the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992.

Refusing reasonable breaks or facilities can also be indirect sex discrimination, and dismissing or subjecting a woman to a detriment for asking is straightforwardly unlawful. In practice most claims in this area are pleaded as indirect sex discrimination rather than under section 18, because the protected period will usually have ended.

What Is a Pregnancy Discrimination Claim Worth?

There is no cap on compensation for discrimination. A tribunal awards what it takes to put you back in the position you would have been in, and adds a separate sum for the hurt caused.

An award is built from these components:

• Loss of earnings, past and future, including bonuses, commission and benefits. This is normally the largest element.
• Pension loss, which is often significant and frequently under-claimed.
• Injury to feelings, assessed against the Vento bands below.
• Personal injury, where the treatment caused a diagnosed psychiatric injury.
• Interest at 8% per year, running from the date of the discriminatory act on the injury to feelings award.
• An Acas Code uplift of up to 25% where your employer unreasonably failed to follow the Acas Code on disciplinary and grievance procedures.
• Aggravated damages, where the employer’s conduct was high-handed, malicious or insulting.

Pregnancy dismissal cases tend to sit in the middle band or above, because the treatment lands at a moment of acute financial and personal vulnerability, and tribunals say so. Read more on how injury to feelings awards work and on compensation for pregnancy discrimination.

“Claimants consistently undervalue their own cases. They focus on injury to feelings because it is the figure everyone talks about, and forget that the loss of earnings claim runs until they get an equivalent job, which after a maternity-related dismissal can take a very long time. Pension loss gets left out altogether in most claims I see drafted without advice. Get the schedule of loss right and the settlement conversation changes completely.”

Tom Street Principal Solicitor, Tom Street & Co.

Time Limits: The Deadline That Ends Most Claims

You have 3 months minus 1 day from the act you are complaining about to start your claim. For a dismissal, time runs from the effective date of termination, not from the day you were told.

Before you can lodge a tribunal claim you must notify Acas early conciliation. That stops the clock while conciliation runs, and gives you at least a month afterwards to lodge. It does not give you a fresh start, so do not treat it as breathing room.

Where the unfavourable treatment is a continuing state of affairs rather than a single act, time runs from the last incident in the series. Getting that argument right can rescue older complaints, but it is not something to gamble on: work from the earliest date, not the latest.

A tribunal can extend the deadline for a discrimination claim where it is “just and equitable” to do so. That discretion is real but it is exercised sparingly, and being unaware of the deadline is rarely enough on its own.

The limit rises to six months for all tribunal claims no earlier than October 2026 under the Employment Rights Act 2025. Until that is in force, assume the shorter deadline applies to you. Our time limits guide explains how to calculate yours.

How to Bring a Claim

1. Write things down now. Dates, who said what, who was in the room. Contemporaneous notes carry real weight at a hearing, and memory fades faster than you expect.
2. Secure your evidence. Email yourself copies of appraisals, the message telling your employer you were pregnant, the redundancy scoring, the rejected flexible working request. Do it before your access is switched off, and stay within your employer’s policies on confidential data.
3. Raise a grievance. It is not compulsory, but it forces the employer to state a position in writing, and failing to deal with it properly can support an uplift of up to 25%.
4. Notify Acas early conciliation. This is compulsory, and it must be done before you can present a claim.
5. Get advice on the schedule of loss before you settle. Most pregnancy discrimination claims settle. What they settle for depends almost entirely on whether the losses were properly worked out at the start.
6. Lodge the ET1 in time. The deadline is the one thing that cannot be fixed later.

The scale of the problem is not in doubt. Research for the Equality and Human Rights Commission found that 77% of mothers reported a negative or possibly discriminatory experience at work during pregnancy, maternity leave or on their return, and that around one in nine were dismissed, made redundant where others were not, or treated so badly they felt forced out. Only a small fraction ever bring a claim. The law on this is stronger than most people affected by it realise.