Equality Act 2010: Protected Characteristics, Rights, and Claims

The Equality Act 2010 is the main anti-discrimination law in England, Scotland, and Wales. It pulled together older statutes like the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Race Relations Act 1976 into one framework, and it protects you from unfair treatment at work, in education, when using services, when renting or buying property, and in many other everyday settings.1GOV.UK. Equality Act 2010: Guidance It does this by listing nine protected characteristics, defining what counts as discrimination, and placing duties on employers, service providers, and public bodies.

The Nine Protected Characteristics

Every claim under the Act has to connect to at least one of the nine characteristics set out in Section 4.2Legislation.gov.uk. Equality Act 2010, Section 4 The list is closed: if the reason for the treatment sits outside it, the Act does not apply.

  • Age — belonging to a particular age group, defined narrowly or broadly.
  • Disability — a physical or mental impairment with a substantial and long-term negative effect on your ability to carry out everyday activities. “Substantial” means more than minor or trivial, and “long-term” means lasting or likely to last at least 12 months. Fluctuating conditions and conditions in remission can still qualify if they would have that effect without treatment.3GOV.UK. Definition of Disability Under the Equality Act 20104Legislation.gov.uk. Equality Act 2010, Section 6
  • Gender reassignment — proposing to transition, currently transitioning, or having transitioned. Medical treatment or surgery is not required.5Equality and Human Rights Commission. Gender Reassignment Discrimination
  • Marriage and civil partnership — being legally married or in a civil partnership. Single, divorced, and cohabiting people are not covered by this specific characteristic.
  • Pregnancy and maternity — being pregnant or having recently given birth. At work, the protected period runs from the start of pregnancy to the end of maternity leave (or, if you have no right to maternity leave, two weeks after birth). Outside work, protection lasts 26 weeks after childbirth.6Equality and Human Rights Commission. Pregnancy and Maternity Discrimination
  • Race — colour, nationality, and ethnic or national origins.
  • Religion or belief — any religion, religious or philosophical belief, or lack of belief.
  • Sex — being a man or a woman.
  • Sexual orientation — attraction toward people of the same sex, the opposite sex, or both.

What Counts as Discrimination

The Act sets out four types of unlawful conduct. The distinctions matter, because the evidence needed and the defences available differ.

Direct Discrimination

Under Section 13, direct discrimination is treating you less favourably than someone else because of a protected characteristic. The test uses a comparator: would a person in a similar situation, but without your characteristic, have been treated better?7Legislation.gov.uk. Equality Act 2010, Section 13 Protection also covers discrimination by association (you are treated badly because of someone else’s characteristic, such as a disabled relative) and by perception (you are treated badly because someone assumes you have a characteristic, whether or not you do).8Legislation.gov.uk. Equality Act 2010 Explanatory Notes – Section 13: Direct Discrimination

Indirect Discrimination

Section 19 catches rules, policies, or practices that look neutral but put people with a particular characteristic at a disadvantage. A dress code requiring all staff to be clean-shaven, for instance, could disadvantage men of certain faiths. The organisation has a defence if it can show the policy is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.9Legislation.gov.uk. Equality Act 2010, Section 19

Harassment

Section 26 defines harassment as unwanted conduct related to a protected characteristic that has the purpose or effect of violating your dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment. Tribunals look at both your perception and whether it was reasonable for the conduct to have that effect. You do not need a comparator, which can make harassment easier to frame than direct discrimination.

Victimisation

Section 27 protects you from retaliation for raising a discrimination complaint, giving evidence in someone else’s case, or doing anything else the Act calls a “protected act.” Without this, few people would risk complaining.

How the Burden of Proof Works

Direct evidence of a discriminatory motive is rare, so Section 136 shifts the burden. You start by establishing facts from which a tribunal could conclude that discrimination occurred. Once you clear that threshold, the burden moves to the other side to prove that discrimination was not the reason. This is one of the mechanics that makes the Act workable in practice.

Where the Act Applies

The scope is deliberately wide, so the same core protections follow you from a job interview to a hospital waiting room.

  • Employment (Part 5) — recruitment, working conditions, pay, promotion, training, and dismissal. It covers employees, workers, apprentices, and job applicants. Most claims arise here.
  • Services and public functions (Part 3) — anyone providing goods, facilities, or services to the public, paid or free: shops, banks, restaurants, hospitals, transport operators, government departments.
  • Education (Part 6) — schools, colleges, and universities, covering admissions and treatment once enrolled.
  • Premises (Part 4) — landlords and property managers in the sale, letting, and management of property.
  • Associations (Part 7) — private clubs and associations of 25 or more members that use a genuine selection process, in their membership decisions.10Legislation.gov.uk. Equality Act 2010 Explanatory Notes – Part 7: Associations

Public and private sector organisations are both bound. A three-person business faces the same discrimination rules as a large government department.

Equal Pay Between Men and Women

Chapter 3 of Part 5 deals with pay differences between men and women. Every employment contract is treated as containing a “sex equality clause” under Section 66: if a term in your contract is less favourable than the corresponding term for a colleague of the opposite sex doing equal work, your term is automatically modified to match.11Legislation.gov.uk. Equality Act 2010

“Equal work” comes in three forms: like work (the same job or broadly similar), work rated as equivalent under a job evaluation study, and work of equal value in terms of the demands it makes, such as effort, skill, and decision-making. An employer can defend a pay gap by showing it is due to a material factor that is not related to sex; if the factor is indirectly discriminatory, it must also be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

Reasonable Adjustments for Disabled People

Sections 20 and 21 go beyond prohibiting discrimination. They impose a positive duty on employers, service providers, and education providers to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people.12Legislation.gov.uk. Equality Act 2010, Section 20 The duty has three limbs:

  • Changing a practice — if a rule, policy, or way of doing things puts a disabled person at a substantial disadvantage, the organisation must take reasonable steps to remove it. That might mean adjusting hours, allowing remote work, or restructuring a role.
  • Dealing with physical features — if steps, narrow doorways, poor lighting, or similar features create a substantial disadvantage, the organisation must remove them, alter them, or provide a reasonable way around them.
  • Providing auxiliary aids — screen-reading software, hearing loops, sign language interpreters, documents in accessible formats, and similar aids where the lack of one would create a substantial disadvantage.

The duty works differently depending on who owes it. For service providers and those carrying out public functions, it is anticipatory: they must think ahead about disabled people generally and remove barriers before any particular person asks.13UK Parliament. The Equality Act 2010: The Impact on Disabled People – Section: Chapter 5: Reasonable Adjustment For employers, it is reactive: it is triggered when the employer knows, or should reasonably know, that a specific employee or applicant is disabled and likely to be disadvantaged without an adjustment.

What counts as “reasonable” turns on how effective the change would be, how practical it is, the cost, and whether financial help is available (such as through Access to Work). The disabled person cannot be asked to pay; the cost falls on the organisation.12Legislation.gov.uk. Equality Act 2010, Section 20

When Different Treatment Is Allowed

A handful of narrow exceptions let organisations take a protected characteristic into account without breaking the Act.

Occupational Requirements

Schedule 9 lets an employer require a particular characteristic for a role where it is crucial to the job (not just one of several desirable qualities) and applying it is a proportionate way of achieving a legitimate aim.14Legislation.gov.uk. Equality Act 2010 Explanatory Notes – Schedule 9: Occupational Requirements A women’s refuge can lawfully require female support workers; a theatre can cast a Black actor for a Black character. Separate provisions apply to organised religions, which may impose requirements related to sex, marriage status, or sexual orientation for roles such as ministers, provided this complies with the religion’s doctrines or avoids conflict with followers’ strongly held convictions.

Positive Action

Section 159 permits an employer to use a protected characteristic as a tie-breaker between candidates who are equally qualified, where a group is underrepresented in the workforce or its members face a connected disadvantage.15GOV.UK. Positive Action in the Workplace Blanket policies of routinely favouring one group are not allowed. Each decision must be made case by case, and all candidates must be assessed on individual merit first.

Duties on Public Bodies

Section 149 places a further obligation on public authorities, including the NHS, police forces, local councils, and government departments, to consider equality in everything they do.16Legislation.gov.uk. Equality Act 2010, Section 149 The Public Sector Equality Duty asks them to eliminate unlawful conduct, advance equality of opportunity, and foster good relations between groups that share a protected characteristic and those that do not.

In practice, this means equality impact assessments before introducing new policies, restructuring services, or making spending decisions. The duty is enforceable through judicial review: the High Court can quash a decision where a public body failed to give proper consideration to equality. A council that closes a facility disproportionately used by disabled residents without assessing the equality impact risks having that decision overturned.17GOV.UK. Public Sector Equality Duty

How to Bring a Claim

ACAS Early Conciliation First

Before filing most employment tribunal claims, including discrimination claims under the Act, you must notify ACAS and go through early conciliation. This has been mandatory since April 2014. A conciliator tries to help you and your employer reach a settlement without a hearing, and the process can last up to 12 weeks as of December 2025.18Acas. Early Conciliation You receive a certificate at the end, and the certificate number is required on your tribunal claim form (ET1).

Time Limits

The standard limit is three months less one day from the act you are complaining about. Early conciliation pauses the clock, so time spent in conciliation does not count against you. From October 2026, the Employment Rights Act 2025 is expected to extend most employment tribunal time limits to six months, though breach of contract claims will stay at three months. Missing the deadline is one of the most common reasons discrimination claims fail.

Compensation

Compensation is designed to put you in the position you would have been in without the discrimination. Unlike unfair dismissal, there is no statutory cap on the award for loss of earnings in discrimination cases.19Equality and Human Rights Commission. Quantification of Claims Guidance

Tribunals also award compensation for injury to feelings using the Vento bands. For claims filed on or after 6 April 2026, the bands are:20Judiciary.uk. Vento Bands Presidential Guidance April 2026 Addendum

  • Lower band, £1,300 to £12,600, for less serious or isolated incidents.
  • Middle band, £12,600 to £37,700, for serious cases not warranting the top band.
  • Upper band, £37,700 to £62,900, for the most serious cases, such as a prolonged campaign of harassment. Exceptional cases can go higher.

Employment tribunals handle workplace claims. County courts handle claims about services, education, and premises. Legal aid is generally not available for discrimination claims.

The Role of the Equality and Human Rights Commission

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has enforcement powers under the Equality Act 2006 that go beyond what an individual claimant can do. It can launch formal investigations, issue unlawful act notices requiring an organisation to prepare an action plan, and apply to court for an injunction if the organisation does not comply.21Equality and Human Rights Commission. Our Enforcement Powers An organisation that ignores a court order to follow an action plan faces an unlimited fine. The EHRC also assesses public bodies’ compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty and can provide legal assistance in cases that raise issues of strategic importance.