This article applies to England, Wales and Scotland.
In brief: Across 7,515 published Employment Tribunal cases where a single claimant involved in an unfair dismissal claim received compensation, the median award was £7,224. Around 41% of awards were under £5,000, and just 2.7% reached £100,000 or more. Official 2023/24 MoJ figures show a similar median of £6,746.
Last updated: August 2026
By Yerty | Analysis of published Employment Tribunal decisions and official MoJ/HMCTS statistics.
If you've been dismissed and you're searching for what compensation might look like, you'll mostly find two things: the £123,543 cap, and headlines about six-figure payouts. Neither tells you what actually happens.
This article does. We analysed 7,515 published Employment Tribunal decisions between January 2011 and July 2026 in which a single claimant involved in an unfair dismissal claim received a compensation award, and set the results alongside the official Ministry of Justice figures. The picture is very different from the headlines.
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're weighing up a claim, consider speaking to a solicitor for advice specific to your circumstances.
The Headline Finding
The median compensation in unfair dismissal cases with an award was £7,224 (95% confidence interval £6,936 to £7,534).
The median is the midpoint: half of awards fell below it, half above. The mean (arithmetic average) across the same cases was £21,774, roughly three times higher. That gap exists because a small number of very large awards pull the average upward. When a solicitor's website or a news story quotes an "average", check which one it means, because for unfair dismissal the mean flatters the typical outcome considerably.
The £100,000 headlines are real cases. They are also terrible guides to a typical outcome.
Where Unfair Dismissal Awards Actually Fall
The full distribution across the 7,515 cases:
| Award band | Share of cases |
|---|---|
| Under £5,000 | 41.1% |
| £5,000 to £10,000 | 17.4% |
| £10,000 to £25,000 | 23.5% |
| £25,000 to £50,000 | 10.5% |
| £50,000 to £100,000 | 4.9% |
| £100,000 or more | 2.7% |
Chart: horizontal bar chart, one bar per award band, length showing the percentage of cases in that band. Source note: analysis of 7,515 published Employment Tribunal decisions, single-claimant cases involving unfair dismissal with a compensation award, January 2011 to July 2026.
Nearly six in ten awards came in under £10,000. One in four sat between £10,000 and £25,000. The top band, £100,000 and above, contains fewer than 3 cases in every 100, and many of those combined unfair dismissal with uncapped claims such as discrimination or whistleblowing, which is how the largest total in the data reached seven figures.
A note on method: these are whole-case totals for published decisions involving an unfair dismissal claim. Most tribunal cases involve more than one type of claim, so the totals reflect everything awarded in the case, not unfair dismissal in isolation. Settled and withdrawn cases never produce a published award, so they don't appear here at all.
What Makes Up an Award
Unfair dismissal compensation under the Employment Rights Act 1996 has two main parts.
The basic award is a fixed sum based on your age, length of service and weekly pay, calculated the same way as statutory redundancy pay. For dismissals on or after 6 April 2026, weekly pay is capped at £751, which puts the maximum basic award at £22,530. In our data, where a basic award was separately recorded, the median was £2,282.
The compensatory award covers your actual financial losses: lost earnings, lost benefits, pension loss and a sum for loss of statutory rights. Where separately recorded, the median compensatory award was £5,165.
Both figures come from the subset of decisions where the judgment itemised the award (around half do). The exact amounts in any case depend on personal circumstances, including how long you were out of work and what you earned.
The Cap Almost Never Bites
Ordinary unfair dismissal compensation is capped at the lower of 52 weeks' gross pay or £123,543 for dismissals on or after 6 April 2026.
In practice, the cap is close to irrelevant for the typical claimant. Among recent cases in our data where a compensatory award and the applicable cap could both be identified, roughly 0.5% sat at or within 5% of the cap. A median award of £7,224 sits at about 6% of it. The cap matters to high earners with long periods of loss; for most people, the limit on compensation is their actual financial loss, not the statutory ceiling.
Under the Employment Rights Act 2025, the cap is due to be removed entirely for dismissals from 1 January 2027. Given how rarely awards approach it, this change will affect a small minority of high-value claims rather than shifting the typical outcome.
What This Means for You
Set expectations from the median, not the maximum. If your losses are modest, perhaps because you found new work quickly, a realistic award may be in the low thousands. That can still be worth pursuing, but it helps to know before you invest a year in litigation. Understanding how to prove unfair dismissal is the other half of that judgement.
Your losses drive the number. Because the compensatory award tracks actual financial loss, the same dismissal produces very different awards for different people. Keeping records of your job search and income after dismissal directly affects what a tribunal can award, and tribunals expect you to take reasonable steps to find new work.
Published awards are not the whole market. Most claims resolve through ACAS conciliation or settlement before any hearing, and those outcomes are confidential. The data here describes what tribunals award when cases go the distance; it says nothing about what cases settle for.
The clock is short. The time limit for an unfair dismissal claim is currently 3 months minus 1 day from the effective date of termination, and you must contact ACAS for early conciliation first, which pauses the clock. Under the Employment Rights Act 2025 this limit increases to 6 months for dismissals from 1 October 2026, but if your dismissal has already happened, the 3-month rule applies. If you're inside that window, our guide on what to do after an unfair dismissal covers the immediate steps.
Are Awards Getting Bigger?
Median awards in the data have risen over recent years:
| Calendar year | Cases with award | Median award |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 1,223 | £6,707 |
| 2022 | 706 | £8,806 |
| 2023 | 612 | £7,808 |
| 2024 | 713 | £9,816 |
| 2025 | 482 | £10,997 |
The 2025 median of £10,997 is roughly 64% higher than 2021's. Treat the trend as directional rather than precise: the mix of claim types, wage inflation and which decisions reach publication all shift year to year. Even so, the direction is consistent with rising pay and lengthening tribunal waits, since a longer wait for a hearing can mean a longer period of loss to compensate.
How This Compares to the Official Picture
The Ministry of Justice publishes award statistics for unfair dismissal each year. According to the latest published tables (2023/24), 650 unfair dismissal claims received compensation at a remedy hearing, with a median award of £6,746, a mean of £13,749 and a maximum of £179,124.
The official median lands close to ours, which is reassuring, but the two datasets measure different things. The MoJ counts a few hundred remedy outcomes per year recorded by HMCTS; our corpus draws on the full register of published tribunal decisions across 15 years. Both agree on the essential point: the typical unfair dismissal award is measured in single-figure thousands, not six figures.
Success rates are a separate question from award size. Among unfair dismissal claims in our corpus that were decided on their merits, roughly 45% succeeded in whole or in part, though this figure is provisional while our outcome extraction completes. Our guide to employment tribunal outcomes and success rates covers that side of the picture.
This analysis shows the headline distribution. The full breakdown behind it, including how claims involving unfair dismissal resolve, award composition and outlier context, is available through Yerty's Award Benchmark Report.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the average payout for unfair dismissal in the UK?
Across 7,515 published tribunal cases involving unfair dismissal with a compensation award, the median was £7,224 and the mean was £21,774. Official MoJ figures for 2023/24 show a median of £6,746. The median is the better guide, because a few very large awards inflate the mean.
What is the maximum compensation for unfair dismissal?
For dismissals on or after 6 April 2026, the compensatory award for ordinary unfair dismissal is capped at the lower of 52 weeks' gross pay or £123,543, plus a basic award of up to £22,530. The cap does not apply to dismissals connected with whistleblowing or health and safety.
How is unfair dismissal compensation calculated?
It has two parts: a basic award, a fixed formula based on age, length of service and capped weekly pay, and a compensatory award covering actual financial losses such as lost earnings, benefits and pension. Awards can be adjusted, for example for a failure to follow the ACAS Code of Practice.
Do most unfair dismissal claims result in large payouts?
No. In our data, 41% of awards were under £5,000 and nearly six in ten were under £10,000. Only 2.7% reached £100,000 or more, and many of those combined unfair dismissal with uncapped claims such as discrimination or whistleblowing.
What is the time limit for an unfair dismissal claim?
Currently 3 months minus 1 day from the effective date of termination, with mandatory ACAS early conciliation pausing the clock. Under the Employment Rights Act 2025, the limit increases to 6 months for dismissals occurring on or after 1 October 2026. Earlier dismissals keep the 3-month limit.
Will the unfair dismissal compensation cap be removed?
Yes. Under the Employment Rights Act 2025, the statutory cap on the compensatory award is due to be removed for dismissals from 1 January 2027. In practice this affects few claims, since around 0.5% of recent awards in our data sat near the cap.
Do these figures include settlements?
No. The data covers published tribunal decisions where compensation was awarded. Most claims settle through ACAS conciliation or private agreement before a hearing, and settlement amounts are confidential, so they never appear in published award data from any source, official or otherwise.
Sources
- "Tribunal Statistics Quarterly: April to June 2024" (Employment Tribunal and EAT Tables 2023 to 2024), Ministry of Justice / GOV.UK, 2024 — https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/tribunals-statistics-quarterly-april-to-june-2024
- "Employment Rights Act 2025", Acas, 2026 — https://www.acas.org.uk/employment-rights-act-2025
- Employment Rights Act 1996, ss.118–126 (compensation) — https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1996/18/contents
- Analysis of published Employment Tribunal decisions, January 2011 to July 2026, Yerty ET corpus (single-claimant cases involving unfair dismissal with a compensation award, n=7,515). Figures provisional while extraction backfill completes.