These are the health and safety compliance dates for 2026 and 2027 that affect worker safety, lone working, and violence and abuse at work.
Only one of these is in force today. The rest are announced dates, and for several the legal step that starts them has not been taken, which matters: you can plan around a date, but you cannot rely on one. The status column says which is which, and every date is traced back to the legislation or the government page it came from.
| Date | What changes | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 6 April 2026 | Whistleblowing protection strengthened for workers who report sexual harassment | In force now |
| 1 October 2026 | Employment tribunal time limit rises from three months to six | Date announced |
| 30 October 2026 | Employers made responsible for preventing harassment of their staff by customers and the public | Date announced, not in force |
| 30 October 2026 | The sexual harassment duty rises from “reasonable steps” to “all reasonable steps” | Date announced, not in force |
| 30 October 2026 | Ministers gain a power to define what a reasonable step is | Date announced, not in force |
| 31 January 2027 | Openreach retires the PSTN. Equipment that dials out over a copper phone line is affected | Firm deadline, with a stated exception |
| Spring 2027 | Martyn’s Law expected to take effect | Expected, no date confirmed |
| No date announced | Assaulting a retail worker becomes a specific offence | Passed, not in force |
| No date announced | EHRC updates its technical guidance for the 2026 changes | Announced by the EHRC |
| May 2029, spring 2030 | 2G networks retired, EE then VodafoneThree | Operator announcements |
One item on this list has already happened, and it is worth knowing because it changes what a disclosure at work triggers.
Since 6 April 2026, brought into force by SI 2026/3, the Employment Rights Act 2025 has strengthened protections for workers who, in the government’s words, “blow the whistle” on sexual harassment. If somebody raises harassment by a guest, a customer or a patient, the protection attached to that disclosure is stronger than it was last year.
Three separate changes arrive on the same day, and together they are the most significant thing in this calendar for anyone whose staff deal with the public.
The third-party harassment duty. Section 21 of the Employment Rights Act 2025 inserts a new subsection into section 40 of the Equality Act 2010:
“An employer (A) must not permit a third party to harass a person (B) who is an employee of A.”
You only “permit” it if the harassment happened in the course of the employee’s employment and you failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent it. So the question after an incident is not only what the customer did. It is what you had in place beforehand. A third party means anyone who is not you and not your own staff.
“All reasonable steps” on sexual harassment. Section 20 does one thing: it inserts the word “all” before “reasonable steps” in the existing preventative duty. Short amendment, higher bar.
A power to define what a reasonable step is. Section 22 inserts a new section 40B allowing regulations to specify what counts, potentially covering assessments, published policies, reporting routes and complaint handling. Note carefully that it is the power that commences on 30 October. No such regulations have been made.
Now the caveat, and it is the one most worth having straight. The government has announced the date, but it has not yet taken the legal step that starts these three changes. No commencement regulations have been made for any of them. Section 21 is marked on the statute book as “not in force at Royal Assent”. The first commencement instrument under the Act brought a long list of provisions into force across January, February and April 2026, and sections 20, 21 and 22 are not among them. What exists today is a published government timetable, not a live duty. Our guide to lone working law covers the wider UK position.
For lone workers this is an evidence problem more than a policy one. “All reasonable steps” gets judged after the fact, and a shift worked alone is where the record thins out. Task history, check-in logs, alert records and resolution notes are the kind of material that helps answer it, and Safepoint’s management portal keeps them as a matter of course, categorised against RIDDOR injury standards where relevant. None of that makes an employer compliant on its own. It is the difference between showing your work and remembering it.
From 1 October 2026, the time limit for bringing a claim to the employment tribunal rises from three months to six. The government’s timeline adds that for breach of employment contract claims in Scotland, the change happens on 9 November 2026 instead.
That is not a safety rule, but it belongs in a safety calendar for a practical reason: it doubles the window in which an incident at work can turn into a claim. Whatever records you keep about who was on shift, what happened and how it was handled, they need to still be findable twice as far back.
The Openreach public switched telephone network reaches its migration deadline. Government’s telecommunications modernisation timeline puts it plainly: “All users of the Openreach PSTN will need to be migrated to new services by the 31 January 2027.”
Two things about that date are usually reported as harder than they are. Government’s own analogue to digital guidance says the upgrade is expected to be complete “for most customers” by January 2027, and that an interim solution exists for customers without broadband, running “until a digital solution becomes available or 2030, if that comes sooner”. So it is a firm industry deadline with a stated exception, not a cliff edge for every line in the country.
What it does affect is anything that dials out over a copper line. Alarm panels, lift lines, telecare units and older monitored alarm equipment all sit in scope. Equipment that connects over the mobile network rather than a phone line is a different question entirely, which is worth knowing before somebody replaces the wrong thing: Safepoint’s lone worker device uses a multi-network roaming SIM and needs no phone line at all. If you are reviewing what your team actually carries, our roundup of the best lone worker apps in the UK covers the options.
Spring 2027, and the date is not confirmed. The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 3 April 2025, and government guidance on the SIA’s role says it is “expected to take effect in spring 2027, though the exact date hasn’t been confirmed yet”. There is no obligation to comply yet.
The thresholds are worth knowing now even so. Under section 2 of the Act, premises where 200 or more individuals may be present at the same time are standard duty premises, and at 800 or more they become enhanced duty premises. Statutory guidance under section 27 was published in April 2026 and updated in May, and the Security Industry Authority will be the regulator.
Standard duty premises will need public protection procedures covering evacuation, invacuation, lockdown and communicating information. Enhanced duty premises will need those plus public protection measures covering monitoring, movement, physical safety and security.
Two things, and both get reported as though they are live. Unlike the 30 October changes above, neither has a date attached at all.
Assault of a retail worker. Section 45 of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 creates a specific offence. The government’s retail crime factsheet gives the maximum as “six months in prison, and/or an unlimited fine”, with a presumption that courts impose a Criminal Behaviour Order on first conviction. The section is marked “not in force at Royal Assent” and no commencement order has been made. Our guide to lone working in retail covers the sector context.
Updated EHRC guidance. The Equality and Human Rights Commission says on its technical guidance page that changes to the law on sexual harassment come into force in April and October 2026, and that it is working to update the guidance. The current version dates from September 2024, so the authoritative interpretation of “all reasonable steps” does not exist yet.
Beyond this calendar’s window sit two dates that already affect what you buy.
The 2G networks are being retired on separate operator timetables, not a single industry date. Government’s timeline records that EE will retire its 2G network and services from May 2029, and that the VodafoneThree 2G network will be switched off in spring 2030. Copper exchange closures run alongside on their own phased programme, reaching 42 closures by December 2030.
What runs on those networks is why the dates matter here. A lone worker device, an alarm SIM or a mobile telecare unit that can only reach 2G stops being able to raise an alarm once its operator switches off, and unlike a phone nobody notices until it is needed. Anything bought now on a five-year replacement cycle has to outlive those dates, which makes it a procurement question this year rather than in 2029. Our guide to what the PSTN and 2G switch-offs mean for lone worker devices covers which equipment each one affects.
Two of the pages behind this are short and worth twenty minutes of anyone’s time: the government implementation timeline for what lands when, and section 21 itself for the wording you will be judged against.
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