The final independent report of Director of Labour Market Enforcement (DLME) commissioned assessment on the scale and nature of labour non-compliance and other work-based harms in the UK has been published with some shocking results.
The report was to question:
- How many workers have their rights breached in the UK labour market?
- What issues do they experience most often, and is there an overlap between them?
- How are they affected by each of these issues?
- Who is at higher or lower risk?
- Are there any differences between workers in more precarious positions and the full workforce?
The research result offers a targeted snapshot into working conditions, focusing on the period between spring/summer 2023 and spring/summer 2025.
‘Clear legal violations’
As part of the results, a number of ‘clear legal violations’ were identified:
- National Minimum Wage (NMW)
- Workers not receiving a required payslip regularly or at all (when eligible)
- New employments not receiving a contract or Key Information Document (KID) ahead of starting a job or within the time period stipulated by the law (this applies to those who started a new job in the last 2 years)
- Agency workers being charged work-finding fees by agencies
14% of workers experienced at least one clear legal violation
The results show that around 5.4 million workers are having these basic employment rights breached.
Key employment rights
Additionally the report highlights further employment right concerns affecting over 26.6 million of those working.
The results show that 7 in 10 workers experienced at least 1 of these further 8 main focus issues, which together cover a range of legal violations, potential legal violations and other harmful practices at work. That equates to an estimated 26.6 to 28.7 million workers in the UK affected.
…results indicate UK workers are widely impacted by financial harms, administrative violations, and health and safety-related issues alike.
Prevalence of key issues, as shown by the Working Lives survey (weighted estimates)
The following information from the report provides more information on the areas of concern and prevalence amount UK workers.
| Issue | Full workforce | Precarious workers |
|---|---|---|
| Financial harms: unfair deductions | 13.75% | 21.89% |
| Financial harms: NMW violations (as % of employees only) | 6.11% | 14.85% |
| Financial harms: unpaid extra hours of work | 31.84% | 28.19% |
| Financial harms: work-finding fees (as % of agency workers only) | 6.75% | 12.14% |
| Administrative violations: not receiving a payslip regularly or at all (where applicable) | 4.84% | 17.51% |
| Administrative violations: not receiving a contract or key document (at all or within the legally required time) | 23.3% | 32.54% |
| Administrative violations: leave-related difficulties | 17.12% | 12.84% |
| Health and Safety and mistreatment at work: physical injury experienced due to work (total experienced by the worker or co-worker) | 16.4% | 7% |
| by the worker | 14.61% | 15.21% |
| by a co-worker | 7.55% | 11.65% |
| Health and Safety and mistreatment at work: negative mental health impact of work | 37.49% | 22.14% |
| Health and Safety and mistreatment at work: bullying and harassment at the workplace | 23.91% | 18.38% |
The Fair Work Agency – Matthew Taylor
The project’s findings are highly relevant to the FWA’s work in the near term as it develops its first strategy for publication in early 2027, aligning with the Strategic Steer set by government. That this report identifies one in seven workers affected by non-compliance with employment laws in the FWA space demonstrates the scale of the challenge for us.
Longer-term the remit of the FWA will expand to include new areas, such as holiday pay, for state enforcement. The FWA will also need to work closely and collaboratively with those responsible for tackling other labour market issues and harms. This research also brings valuable insights around the gig economy, health and safety, bullying and harassment and worker voice, and where these can overlap with core FWA interests.
The independent report – Working Lives
Labour market non-compliance covers a broad and varied spectrum of mistreatment of workers. This ranges from accidental and relatively minor infringements to deliberate and extreme harms.
This research project was commissioned by the DLME in 2022 to help meet its statutory requirement to provide an assessment of the scale and nature of labour market non-compliance in the UK to inform its annual strategy. DLME functions were transferred into the Fair Work Agency (FWA) in April 2026 and as such, the final report is now being published as follows:
Executive summary
The full report
Opinion
Is it complexity or deliberate illegal activity. Either way, employers appear to be having some difficult in aligning their business with the statutory minimum rights for those who are working.
With expansion of employment rights further and the extension of powers to the Fair Work Agency, will we see more and more employers pursued for breaching their legal requirements.
PAYadvice.UK 13/5/2026