Update: Government Consults on Worker Status Reform

The government has opened a consultation that could make it harder for businesses to treat people as self-employed when the reality of the relationship points to worker status. It was published on 14 October 2026, covers England, Wales and Scotland (employment law is devolved in Northern Ireland), and closes on 8 January 2027. Nothing in the law has changed yet and these proposals are open for response.

The consultation addresses what it calls ‘bogus self-employment’, where someone is labelled self-employed but, given the control exercised over how they work, a tribunal would find them to be a ‘worker’. The government, citing a Resolution Foundation report, says as many as 900,000 people may be affected, missing out on core rights such as the national minimum wage and paid holiday.

The main proposals change the worker test, known as the “limb (b)” test, in two ways.

• One would place less weight on personal service, so that a substitution clause which is rarely or never used would no longer, on its own, preclude worker status. Control over how the work is done would weigh more heavily and
• The other would create a presumption of worker status This would reverse the burden of proof so that the business, rather than the individual, has to show that someone is not a worker.

It also proposes:

• Stronger enforcement: treating repeated misclassification as an aggravating factor, so a tribunal could impose a penalty of up to £20,000 per claim;
• An online status-checker tool, modelled on the Check Employment Status for Tax (CEST) tool;
• A wider role for the Fair Work Agency, which began operating in April 2026 but does not yet enforce employment status; and
• New protections for the genuinely self-employed: a written statement of key terms such as scope of work and payment terms, protection against blacklisting, and health and safety protections.

Film, television, animation, VFX and games run on freelance and contract engagement, and the consultation singles out the creative sector as one where self-employment is common and health and safety risks can be high. If a presumption of worker status and a lighter personal-service test become law, some people currently engaged as self-employed could be workers, with the rights that follow.

Businesses that rely on substitution clauses to support a self-employed label would feel this most.

Responses can be made until 8 January 2027, and screen businesses and the bodies that represent them have a direct interest in how the test is redrawn. Ahead of any change, businesses can review how they engage crew, contributors and other freelancers, and whether the day-to-day reality matches the self-employed label in their contracts for service.

Getting status wrong has always carried cost but a reversed burden of proof would make it harder to defend.