This article applies to England, Wales and Scotland.
In brief: From over 120,000 published Employment Tribunal cases analysed by Yerty, more than 22,000 recorded awards show a median of around £3,000 per claimant, and 62% of awards are under £5,000. Typical amounts vary by claim: roughly £7,200 for unfair dismissal and £11,000 for discrimination. Headline "averages" are inflated by rare six-figure awards.
Last updated: August 2026
By Yerty | Analysis of published Employment Tribunal decisions and official MoJ/HMCTS statistics.
If you are weighing up a tribunal claim, at some point you will search this exact question and find answers ranging from £7,000 to £50,000. Most of those numbers are technically real. Most of them will still mislead you.
This guide answers the question with data rather than headlines. Yerty analysed more than 120,000 Employment Tribunal cases published since 2017, including over 22,000 with a recorded compensation award, and compared the results with the official Ministry of Justice award tables. The picture that emerges is very different from the figures usually quoted.
Important: This guide provides information about UK employment law. Yerty is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. Data describes past cases and cannot predict the outcome of any individual claim. If you are considering a tribunal claim, consider speaking to a solicitor for advice specific to your circumstances.
The Honest Answer: The Median Award Is About £3,000
Across 22,621 published cases where a single claimant received compensation, the median award is around £3,000. Half of all recorded awards fall below that figure. 62% are under £5,000, and only 1.2% reach £100,000 or more.
The arithmetic "average" (the mean) across the same cases is about £11,500, nearly four times the median. That gap is not a contradiction. It tells you that a small number of very large awards pull the average up, while the typical case sits far lower.
In our view, a single "average payout" figure is the least useful number in employment law. The realistic starting point is the median for your specific claim type, which is what the rest of this guide sets out.
Figures are provisional while Yerty's extraction of the full published record completes, and they describe published decisions only. See the methodology note below.
Why the "Average" Misleads You
Tribunal awards are heavily skewed. The largest single-claimant award in the published record analysed by Yerty exceeds £4.5 million, and 14 awards top £1 million, almost all involving whistleblowing or discrimination claims where compensation is uncapped. Awards like these are newsworthy precisely because they are exceptional.
Their effect on the "average" is dramatic. Remove just the top 1% of awards (those above roughly £112,000) and the mean falls from about £11,500 to about £8,000, a drop of nearly a third. The median barely moves. That is why Yerty reports medians first: they describe the case in the middle, not the outlier at the top.
Whistleblowing claims show the starkest version of this pattern. The mean award in cases involving a whistleblowing claim is around £58,000, but the median is £9,500. Both numbers are accurate. Only one of them describes a typical case.
Typical Awards by Claim Type
The table below shows the median recorded award in single-claimant cases involving each claim type, from Yerty's analysis of cases published between 2017 and July 2026. Amounts are whole-case totals for cases involving that claim type, since tribunals award compensation for the case as a whole rather than pricing each claim separately.
| Claim type | Awards analysed | Median award |
|---|---|---|
| Unlawful deduction from wages | 14,476 | £2,300 |
| Breach of contract | 10,402 | £4,000 |
| Holiday pay / working time | 9,421 | £2,900 |
| Unfair dismissal | 7,515 | £7,200 |
| Redundancy | 4,512 | £5,500 |
| All discrimination (combined) | 3,462 | £11,000 |
| Disability discrimination | 1,515 | £12,500 |
| Sex discrimination | 904 | £12,000 |
| Race discrimination | 807 | £7,000 |
| Whistleblowing | 767 | £9,500 |
| Pregnancy and maternity | 565 | £13,000 |
| Age discrimination | 401 | £8,500 |
Chart: horizontal bar chart of median award by claim type, ordered largest to smallest, x-axis £0 to £14,000, each bar labelled with the number of awards analysed. Source note: Yerty analysis of published Employment Tribunal decisions, 2017 to July 2026 (provisional).
Two patterns stand out. Discrimination claims sit at the top of the table, reflecting the fact that discrimination compensation is uncapped and includes injury to feelings as well as financial loss. Wage-related claims sit at the bottom, because the sums in dispute (unpaid wages, holiday pay, notice pay) are usually smaller and more precisely defined.
Methodology note: figures come from Yerty's analysis of more than 120,000 Employment Tribunal cases published on GOV.UK from 2017 to July 2026. They include only cases with one claimant and a recorded monetary award, so every figure is per person. Costs orders are excluded. Extraction of the full published record is still completing, so all figures are provisional and directional.
Most Claims Never Appear in This Data
Award statistics describe a minority of disputes. The Ministry of Justice and ACAS (the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) have consistently reported that most tribunal claims resolve before a final hearing, through ACAS early conciliation, settlement or withdrawal. Settled cases are usually confidential, so nobody's statistics can see them, including these.
That cuts both ways. Some people settle for more than the medians above, some for less, and many disputes end with no payment at all. Award data tells you what tribunals ordered in cases that went the distance and were published. For context on how cases resolve overall, see our guide to employment tribunal outcomes and success rates.
How This Compares With the Official Figures
The Ministry of Justice publishes annual award tables covering compensation recorded at remedy hearings in a single financial year. In the most recent tables (2023/24), the median unfair dismissal award was £6,746 and the largest single award was £995,128, in a sex discrimination case.
Those official figures sit close to Yerty's corpus-wide unfair dismissal median of about £7,200, which is reassuring: two different windows on the system point to the same answer. The MoJ tables cover a few hundred awards per claim type in one year; Yerty's analysis covers the full published record since 2017, which is what makes claim-type and distribution breakdowns possible. We compare the two views in more detail in our analysis of typical versus maximum tribunal awards.
Caps, Uncapped Claims and the Current Statutory Figures
Some claims have a statutory ceiling and some do not, which explains much of the spread in the table above.
For ordinary unfair dismissal, compensation is made up of a basic award and a compensatory award. For dismissals on or after 6 April 2026, the compensatory award is capped at £123,543 or 52 weeks' gross pay, whichever is lower, and a week's pay is capped at £751 for the basic award, under the Employment Rights (Increase of Limits) Order 2026.
Compensation for discrimination and whistleblowing is uncapped. There is no upper limit on what a tribunal can award, which is why almost every million-pound award involves one of these claims.
This area of law is expected to change under the Employment Rights Act 2025: the unfair dismissal compensation cap is due to be removed from 1 January 2027. Check for updates before relying on the cap.
Remember that a cap is a ceiling, not a target. The gap between the £123,543 cap and the £7,200 median is exactly the gap between what is legally possible and what typically happens.
What This Means for You
Anchor your expectations to the median for your claim type, not to a headline. If you have an unfair dismissal claim, the realistic reference point is around £7,200, not the cap and not a news story about a seven-figure award. Thousands of people bring these claims every year, and you do not need to be a legal expert to form a grounded view of what similar cases have produced.
Your own numbers matter more than any average. Tribunals calculate compensation from actual losses: lost earnings, notice pay, pension loss and, in discrimination cases, injury to feelings. Two people with the same claim type can receive very different awards because their losses differ. An average cannot capture that, which is why a schedule of loss built on your real figures carries more weight than any statistic.
You cannot stack medians. Cases often involve several claims, and the figures above are whole-case totals for cases involving each claim type. Bringing three claims does not mean adding three medians together.
If you want the full picture for your claim type, including the complete distribution, confidence intervals and how awards break down, that is what Yerty's Award Benchmark Report provides. It is currently in early access, and you can apply for early access at the Award Benchmark page.
Time Limits: The Deadline Matters More Than the Payout
None of the figures above matter if the deadline passes. The time limit for most tribunal claims is 3 months minus 1 day from the act you are complaining about (for dismissal, usually the date your employment ended). Tribunals rarely accept late claims.
You must contact ACAS to begin early conciliation before submitting a claim, and time spent in conciliation pauses the clock. Don't delay: tribunals rarely extend these deadlines. Tribunal time limits are expected to increase to 6 months from October 2026 under the Employment Rights Act 2025, but until that change takes effect, the 3-month rule applies.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the average payout at an employment tribunal?
Across more than 22,000 recorded awards in cases published since 2017, Yerty puts the median award to a single claimant at about £3,000, while the mean is about £11,500. The gap exists because rare very large awards inflate the mean. The median is the more realistic reference for a typical case.
What is the average payout for unfair dismissal?
Yerty's analysis of published decisions puts the median unfair dismissal award at about £7,200 across 7,515 cases. The Ministry of Justice's 2023/24 tables report a median of £6,746 for that year. Both sit far below the £123,543 statutory cap that applies from 6 April 2026.
What is the highest employment tribunal payout?
In the MoJ's 2023/24 tables, the largest award was £995,128 in a sex discrimination case. Across the full published record since 2017, Yerty's analysis identifies single-claimant awards above £4.5 million, almost all involving whistleblowing or discrimination, where compensation is uncapped. Awards at this level are exceptional.
Are employment tribunal payouts capped?
Ordinary unfair dismissal compensation is capped at £123,543 or 52 weeks' gross pay (whichever is lower) for dismissals from 6 April 2026. Discrimination and whistleblowing compensation is uncapped. The unfair dismissal cap is due to be removed from 1 January 2027 under the Employment Rights Act 2025.
Do most tribunal claims end in a payout?
No. Most claims resolve before a final hearing, through ACAS conciliation, settlement or withdrawal, and settled amounts are usually confidential. Published award data describes only cases that reached a decision with recorded compensation. A recorded award is one possible ending among several, not the usual one.
Why is the median payout so much lower than the average?
Because awards are skewed by rare large cases. Removing just the top 1% of awards (above roughly £112,000) cuts the mean from about £11,500 to about £8,000, while the median stays near £3,000. Half of all recorded awards are below the median; 62% are under £5,000.
Does bringing more claims mean a bigger payout?
Not automatically. Tribunals compensate proven losses for the case as a whole, so the award reflects what you actually lost and, in discrimination cases, injury to feelings. Yerty's per-claim-type figures are whole-case totals for cases involving that claim, so medians for different claims cannot be added together.
How long do I have to make a tribunal claim?
The time limit for most claims is 3 months minus 1 day from the relevant act, and you must start ACAS early conciliation first, which pauses the clock. This is expected to increase to 6 months from October 2026 under the Employment Rights Act 2025, but the 3-month rule applies until then.
Sources
- "Tribunal Statistics Quarterly (including Employment Tribunal and EAT annual tables, 2023 to 2024)", Ministry of Justice, 2024 — https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics
- "Employment tribunals", ACAS — https://www.acas.org.uk/employment-tribunals
- The Employment Rights (Increase of Limits) Order 2026 — https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2026/310
- "Employment Rights Bill: what it means", ACAS — https://www.acas.org.uk/employment-rights-bill
- Analysis of 120,000+ published Employment Tribunal cases (GOV.UK), 2017 to July 2026, Yerty (provisional while extraction completes)