Bullying at work: how it differs from harassment, and what you can do about it

What counts as bullying

BullyingRepeated, unreasonable behaviour towards you at work that undermines you or damages your dignity, such as persistent criticism, exclusion, humiliation, or intimidation. Bullying on its own is not auto... is repeated, unreasonable behaviour directed at you that undermines you or damages your dignity. It can be a manager who constantly belittles your work in front of others, a colleague who deliberately excludes you, someone who piles unmanageable work on you as punishment, or a pattern of comments designed to humiliate rather than correct. A single sharp exchange usually isn’t bullying. A pattern that builds over weeks or months usually is.

There is no single legal definition of bullying in UK law, unlike harassmentUnwanted behaviour related to a protected characteristic, such as your sex, race, disability, age or religion, that violates your dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile or humiliating environment.... That gap is exactly why this page exists: bullying is real, common, and damaging, but it doesn’t automatically come with a tribunal claim attached the way harassment does.

Bullying vs harassment: the legal line

Harassment has a specific legal test under the Equality Act 2010: unwanted conduct related to a protected characteristicOne of the nine characteristics listed in the Equality Act 2010 against which it is unlawful to discriminate. They include age, disability, race, sex, religion or belief, and sexual orientation. If yo..., your sex, race, disability, age, religion, sexual orientation, or another protected characteristic, that violates your dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, or humiliating environment for you.

Bullying doesn’t need that link. You can be bullied for reasons that have nothing to do with a protected characteristic, because a manager doesn’t like being challenged, because you’re new, because of office politics. When that happens, the Equality Act doesn’t apply, and there’s no standalone claim for “bullying” in UK employment law.

This is the distinction that trips people up. The moment bullying does relate to a protected characteristic, it stops being just bullying and becomes harassment, with everything the Equality Act provides. The same conduct can sit on either side of that line depending on why it’s happening to you, not how it feels.

Bullying without that link still isn’t nothing

Falling outside the Equality Act doesn’t mean you have no options. Three routes still apply.

Your employer’s duty of careA legal responsibility to take reasonable care to avoid causing someone harm. In an occupational health context, it matters because this duty is owed to your employer, not to you.. Employers owe you a common-law duty to protect you from foreseeable psychiatric injury, including injury caused by sustained bullying. In Green v DB Group Services (UK) Ltd, the High Court held an employer liable for an employee’s psychiatric injury after a sustained campaign of small, spiteful acts from colleagues, judged cumulatively rather than incident by incident, because the employer knew what was happening and failed to stop it.

Health and safety. Bullying is a recognised psychological health and safety risk under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. That’s a separate employer obligation from any individual claim you might bring.

The grievanceA formal complaint raised by an employee against their employer, triggering a legal obligation to investigate and respond. route. Raising a grievance is still the right first step, and if your employer handles it badly, that mishandling can itself support a constructive dismissalWhen your employer's behaviour is so serious that you feel you have no choice but to resign, the law may treat that resignation as a dismissal. The most common basis is a fundamental breach of the imp... claim for breach of trust and confidence, separate from whatever the bullying itself was about.

Why this is one of the most common workplace issues, and often where things start

Bullying is not a minor or secondary problem. CIPD’s 2024 UK survey of over 5,000 employees found 15% had experienced bullying in the previous three years, and among those bullied or harassed, 40% said their manager was responsible.

It’s also frequently the starting point, not a side issue. Both bullying cases above began as exactly that: ordinary-sounding workplace friction that, left unaddressed, grew into psychiatric injury, a grievance, and ultimately a tribunal case. If you’re dealing with what feels like a low-grade, hard-to-pin-down pattern of bad treatment, that’s usually the moment to act, not wait for it to become undeniable.

What to do if you’re being bullied

Start keeping a record as soon as you notice a pattern: dates, what was said or done, who else was there. A single note-to-self after each incident builds into evidence you’ll need if this goes further.

Raise it informally first if that feels safe to do, with the person directly or with your manager if they’re not the one bullying you. If that doesn’t resolve it, or doesn’t feel safe, raise a formal grievance. Read the complete guide to raising a grievance at work for what that process involves, or use our grievance letter builder to put it in writing.

If the bullying relates to a protected characteristic, say so explicitly in your grievance. That single sentence is what moves your complaint from bullying into harassment, and brings the Equality Act’s protections with it.