UK employment tribunal statistics: what the latest MoJ figures show
Claims are rising sharply, disposals are falling, and the open caseload has passed half a million. The numbers below are from the Ministry of Justice's quarterly tribunal statistics - the primary source, not a survey - with what the trend means if you employ people.
Employment tribunals received around 50,000 single claims in 2025/26 - up 39% on the previous year - while disposals fell 12%, leaving an open caseload of roughly 531,000 claims at the end of March 2026. Claims are arriving faster than they are being resolved, so the backlog compounds. For employers the practical readings are: the chance of facing a claim is rising, and any claim lodged now will take a long time to conclude.
The headline numbers at a glance
| Measure | Figure | Change on 2024/25 |
|---|---|---|
| Single claims received (full year) | ~50,000 | up 39% |
| Single claims disposed of (full year) | ~26,000 | down 12% |
| Single claims open at 31 March 2026 | ~64,000 | up 55% |
| Total open caseload (all claim types) | ~531,000 | no prior-year figure given |
| Claims received, Jan–Mar 2026 quarter | ~22,000 | single claims up 50% on the same quarter |
How many employment tribunal claims are there?
In the 2025/26 financial year (April 2025 to March 2026), employment tribunals received around 50,000 single claims - one person claiming against one employer - a 39% increase on the year before. Alongside those came around 2,400 multiple lead cases, group actions covering roughly 44,000 further claims. Multiple-claim volumes fell about 40% year on year, but the MoJ notes they are inherently volatile: a single large employer facing a group action can move the national figure on its own. The single-claim series is the better barometer of everyday employer risk - and it is the one rising steeply.
The most recent quarter is steeper still: in January to March 2026 tribunals received around 22,000 claims, with single claims up 50% against the same quarter a year earlier.
The backlog: over half a million open claims
At the end of March 2026 the open caseload stood at around 531,000 claims. Within that, 64,000 are single claims - up 55% in a year - and around 467,000 are claims within multiple cases, dominated by a handful of very large group actions. The single-claim backlog is the number that should concern an individual employer: it grew because roughly 50,000 single claims arrived in a year in which only around 26,000 were disposed of (itself down 12% on the previous year). A system receiving nearly twice what it resolves gets slower every quarter, whatever else changes.
What is driving the rise?
The MoJ publishes the counts, not the causes, so honest commentary stays close to what the data shows: receipts up sharply, disposals down, backlog compounding. Wider context that plausibly contributes - greater awareness of rights, employment-law reform in the news, and from 1 January 2027 the removal of the cap on unfair dismissal compensatory awards, which raises the stakes of every dismissal decision - but attributing the curve to any one of them would be guesswork, and you will find plenty of confident guesswork elsewhere.
What the numbers mean for employers
Three practical readings. First, prevention has never been worth more: with claims up 39% and awards uncapped from 2027, the cheap defences are the boring ones - fair procedures actually followed, grievances handled properly, decisions documented at the time rather than reconstructed later. Second, the backlog cuts both ways: a claim lodged against you will likely hang over the business for a long time, which is an argument for resolving genuine disputes early rather than betting on a distant hearing. Third, records decide cases: by the time a 2026 dispute reaches a hearing, the manager involved may have left - what remains is what was written down. An HR system that keeps the register of what happened and when (ours included) is cheaper than one afternoon of reconstructing events for a solicitor.
Source and verification
All figures are from the Ministry of Justice, Tribunals statistics quarterly: January to March 2026, published 11 June 2026 - the primary source, verified directly on 31 August 2026. MoJ rounds published figures, so numbers here are approximate by design. The next quarterly release will update them; we re-verify before repeating any figure elsewhere.
Frequently asked questions
How many employment tribunal claims are there per year in the UK?
In the 2025/26 financial year, employment tribunals received around 50,000 single claims (up 39% on the year before) plus around 2,400 multiple lead cases covering roughly 44,000 further claims, according to Ministry of Justice quarterly statistics published in June 2026.
How big is the employment tribunal backlog?
At the end of March 2026 the open caseload stood at around 531,000 claims - 64,000 of them single claims (up 55% in a year) and the rest claims within multiple cases, which are heavily skewed by a small number of very large group actions.
Why are employment tribunal claims rising?
The MoJ statistics report the rise without a single cause: single-claim receipts grew 39% year on year while disposals fell 12%, so the backlog compounds. Wider employment-law change and greater awareness of rights are commonly cited drivers; what the data shows directly is claims arriving faster than tribunals can resolve them.
What do tribunal statistics mean for a small employer?
Two things. Rising single claims mean the underlying risk of facing one is growing, and a half-million-claim backlog means a claim that is lodged will hang over the business for a long time - which raises the value of prevention: fair procedures actually followed, decisions documented, and problems surfaced before they harden into disputes.
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The records that decide cases, kept as you go
ER case register, grievance and disciplinary trails, right-to-work and training registers - CoDash keeps the contemporaneous record so a dispute finds documentation, not reconstruction.