The UK is consulting on reversing the burden of proof on worker status, and on new rights for the genuinely self-employed
The UK government opened a twelve-week consultation on 14 October 2026 proposing to change how employment status is decided, and to give the genuinely self-employed a set of rights they do not currently have. It closes at 23:55 on 8 January 2027.
The main proposals:
- De-emphasising personal service in the test for worker status, so that a right to send a substitute does less to defeat a claim
- A presumption of worker status, placing the burden of proof on the engaging business rather than on the individual
- A right to a written statement of scope of work, payment terms and termination terms, for people who are genuinely self-employed
- Extended blacklisting protections and extended health and safety protections for the self-employed
Single worker status, the merger of employee and worker into one category, is described as a long-term ambition. The existing three-tier framework stays for now. The notes to editors state plainly that there are no tax-status proposals in this consultation.
Why this matters
Two different groups of readers are affected, in opposite directions.
If you work through an intermediary, an agency or a platform and have been told you are self-employed, a presumption of worker status is a significant shift. At present the individual has to establish their status, usually at a tribunal, usually after the work has ended. Reversing that puts the question to the business at the point of engagement.
If you engage freelancers, the written statement proposal is the one to read. It would make a written scope, payment terms and termination terms a legal requirement rather than good practice. Remote Work Europe’s view is that this is the most immediately practical part of the package, because it is the part a small business can comply with by changing a document rather than a business model.
The explicit carve-out of tax status matters too. Worker status for employment rights and self-employment for tax have long been capable of coexisting in the UK, and this consultation does not propose to change that. Anyone reading “crackdown on bogus self-employment” as a tax measure is reading it wrong.
What to watch
The consultation closes on 8 January 2027. Responses from people who actually freelance, as distinct from the bodies that represent them, tend to be thin on the ground in exercises like this, and the written-statement proposal is one where a practitioner’s response carries weight.