Whistleblowing now covers sexual harassment disclosures

If you’ve reported sexual 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... at work, you may have more legal protection than you think. Since 6 April 2026, that report can count as whistleblowingMaking a disclosure about wrongdoing in your workplace, such as a health and safety risk, a criminal act, or a miscarriage of justice. If the disclosure qualifies as protected, the law gives you signi..., not just a harassment complaint.

What’s changed

Section 23 of the Employment Rights Act 2025 came into force on 6 April 2026. It amends the definition of a “qualifying disclosure” in whistleblowing law (section 43B of the Employment Rights Act 1996The primary piece of legislation setting out employees rights in the UK, including the right not to be unfairly dismissed, the right to a written statement of employment particulars, and rights relati...) to explicitly include sexual harassment.

In plain terms: if you disclose that sexual harassment has happened, is happening, or is likely to happen, that disclosure can now count as whistleblowing, on top of any claim you already had under the Equality Act 2010The main piece of legislation protecting employees from discrimination at work. It covers nine protected characteristics including age, disability, sex, race, and religion, and makes it unlawful for a....

Sexual harassment here means unwanted conduct of a sexual nature that violates someone’s dignity, or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment. That covers a wide range of situations: comments, inappropriate questions, unwanted physical contact, sharing sexual images, and more.

Why whistleblowing protection matters here

Whistleblowing protection is different from, and in some ways stronger than, standard discrimination protection. If your employer dismisses you, or treats you badly, because you made this kind of disclosure:

• It counts as automatic unfair dismissalA dismissal that's automatically treated as unfair, regardless of how long you've worked somewhere. This applies to reasons like whistleblowing, asserting a statutory right, health and safety, or preg.... You don’t need two years’ service to bring the claim, unlike an ordinary unfair dismissalA legal claim you can bring if your employer dismissed you without a fair reason or without following a fair process. You normally need two years of continuous employment to qualify, though some dismi... claim.
• There’s no cap on compensation for a whistleblowing dismissal, unlike the cap that applies to most unfair dismissal awards.
• You’re also protected from any other detrimentAny action your employer takes that puts you at a disadvantage, short of dismissal. In a whistleblowing or discrimination context, being moved to a worse role, excluded from meetings, or given an unfa... short of dismissal, such as being sidelined, denied opportunities, or subjected to disciplinary action because you spoke up.

What you need for the protection to apply

Two conditions have to be met. You reasonably believe your disclosure is in the public interest. This doesn’t mean the whole public has to be affected. Tribunals have accepted disclosures affecting a specific group of colleagues as being in the public interest. And you reasonably believe the information tends to show that sexual harassment has occurred, is occurring, or is likely to occur.

You don’t need to be certain you’re right. You need a genuine, reasonable belief at the time you made the disclosure.

How this sits alongside your Equality Act rights

This is protection in addition to, not instead of, your existing rights. You can still bring a harassment claim under the Equality Act 2010 against the person responsible and your employer. The whistleblowing route specifically protects you from being punished for speaking up, whether or not the underlying harassment claim ultimately succeeds.

This matters in practice because the two claims protect different things. The Equality Act claim is about what happened to you. The whistleblowing claim is about what happens to you because you reported it.

What to do if you’re thinking about raising something

• Put your disclosure in writing where you can, even if you’ve already raised it verbally. A written record of what you said and when protects you later.
• Make the disclosure to your employer, a manager, or another person or body your employer’s policy identifies as the right channel, where possible.
• Keep a note of any change in how you’re treated after you raise it: a cancelled opportunity, a sudden performance concern, exclusion from meetings you’d normally attend.

If you’re already facing a difficult reaction after raising a concern like this, it’s worth getting advice early, before matters escalate further.