Victimisation at Work: Your Rights After Making a Complaint

This article applies to England, Wales and Scotland.

In brief: Victimisation is when an employer treats you badly because you complained about discrimination, supported someone else's complaint, or gave evidence. It is a separate claim under section 27 of the Equality Act 2010. Your protection does not depend on your complaint being upheld. It depends on you having made it honestly.

Last updated: August 2026

By Yerty | This guide was created using analysis of tribunal cases and official ACAS/Gov.uk guidance.

You raised a concern about discrimination, and since then things have got worse. Shifts have changed. You have been left out. Perhaps you are now in a disciplinary process that appeared from nowhere. You are wondering whether you made a mistake by speaking up.

The law has a name for what you are describing, and an answer to it. This guide covers what victimisation is, what you would need to show, and what our analysis of decided tribunal cases reveals about how these claims run.

Important: This guide provides information about UK employment law. Yerty is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. Every situation is different. If you are being treated badly after raising a complaint, consider speaking to a solicitor for advice specific to your circumstances.

What Is Victimisation?

Victimisation is being treated badly because you did something the law protects, such as complaining about discrimination.

Under section 27 of the Equality Act 2010, a person victimises you if they subject you to a detriment because you did a "protected act", or because they believe you have done, or may do, one.

The everyday meaning of the word causes real confusion here. In ordinary English, "victimisation" suggests being picked on or singled out by a difficult manager. In the Equality Act it means something much narrower: being punished specifically for raising, supporting, or giving evidence about a discrimination complaint. A general grievance about workload or a bad relationship with your boss is not enough on its own.

It is a separate claim, not a type of race or sex discrimination

This is the point most people get wrong. Direct and indirect discrimination are two different ways of discriminating against a protected characteristic. Direct discrimination is being treated worse because of your race. Indirect discrimination is a neutral rule that puts people of your race at a disadvantage. Both need your characteristic as an ingredient.

Victimisation contains no protected characteristic at all. The trigger is not who you are. It is what you did.

Two things follow. First, you do not need to hold the protected characteristic yourself. A manager who supports a colleague's race discrimination grievance and is frozen out afterwards may have a victimisation claim, with no race discrimination claim of his own and no need for one. Second, a victimisation claim is decided separately from the complaint that triggered it. A tribunal can reject your discrimination claim and still find your employer liable for how it treated you afterwards.

What Counts as a Protected Act?

Section 27(2) sets out four categories:

1. Bringing proceedings under the Equality Act
2. Giving evidence or information in connection with proceedings under the Act
3. Doing any other thing for the purposes of or in connection with the Act
4. Making an allegation that someone has contravened the Act

Most people are in the fourth category, usually through an internal grievance. The statutory wording there is important: an allegation counts "whether or not express". You do not have to have used the word "discrimination" or cited the legislation.

What the complaint does have to do, expressly or by implication, is allege conduct that would breach the Equality Act. Describing treatment that would amount to discrimination can be enough. Complaining only of unfairness, rudeness or poor management, with nothing connecting it to a protected characteristic, generally is not.

There is also a second limb that almost nobody knows about. Section 27(1)(b) protects you where your employer merely believes you have complained, or might complain. You do not need to have done anything yet. In our analysis of decided victimisation judgments, this belief limb was engaged in at least one case in eight.

You Do Not Have to Have Been Right

Protection is lost only in narrow circumstances. Section 27(3) removes it where evidence or information given, or an allegation made, is both false and made in bad faith. Both conditions have to be met. Being mistaken is not bad faith, so a complaint that turns out to be unfounded, made honestly, remains a protected act.

That is the legal position. Our analysis suggests it is also what happens in practice.

We looked at bad faith language across decided victimisation judgments. It appeared in 2.9% of judgments where the claim failed and 3.4% where it succeeded. Every other issue in these cases shows up more often in claims that fail, which is what you would expect from a contested point. Bad faith shows no such pattern. It is being mentioned as part of the legal framework, and almost never decided against claimants.

Alongside that sits a finding from the same corpus. In 129 cases, roughly 27% of all successful victimisation claims, the victimisation claim succeeded while every other discrimination claim in the case failed. The complaint did not succeed. The punishment for making it still did.

What Counts as a Detriment?

A detriment means being treated worse, or having your situation made worse. It does not have to be dismissal. The detriments that appear in tribunal judgments include disciplinary action, demotion, withdrawal of shifts or overtime, refusal of a reference, exclusion from meetings, being passed over for promotion, and sudden changes to duties.

What You Would Need to Show

A victimisation claim has three elements:

Causation is where these cases are usually fought. Employers rarely say the connection out loud, which is why the Equality Act includes a shifting burden of proof.

Under section 136, if you establish facts from which a tribunal could decide, in the absence of any other explanation, that victimisation occurred, the tribunal must find that it did. The burden then moves to your employer to show it did not. You do not have to prove what was in your manager's head. You have to get the facts to the point where an explanation is owed.

Getting to that point takes more than showing you complained and were then treated badly. In Madarassy v Nomura International plc [2007] EWCA Civ 33, the Court of Appeal held that a difference in treatment on its own does not shift the burden. A tribunal needs facts from which it could conclude that victimisation occurred, and the bare sequence of events is not enough on its own.

What tends to do that work is everything around the sequence: how close in time the treatment was to your complaint, whether your employer's explanation has shifted, whether it followed its own procedures, and how comparable colleagues who had not complained were treated. Assembling that in a form a tribunal can follow is where self-representing claimants most often need structured support.

What the Data Shows

We analysed published Employment Tribunal decisions to see how these claims actually run. The figures describe past cases, cannot predict any individual claim, and outcome rates remain provisional.

Two patterns are worth knowing before you decide anything.

Victimisation rarely travels alone, and what it travels with makes no measurable difference. Only around 1% of cases pleading victimisation brought it as the only claim. Comparing success rates for victimisation pleaded with discrimination alone, with unfair dismissal, and with whistleblowing, the spread was under two and a half percentage points.

Time limits are less of a problem here than elsewhere. Victimisation claims were roughly half as likely to be lost on jurisdiction as other discrimination claims. Retaliation is usually recent and tied to a live complaint, so it tends to be in time in a way that a long history of discriminatory treatment often is not.

What this means for you

The claim is decided on its own merits, so a discrimination complaint that fails does not automatically take it down. The data shows no advantage in framing a claim one way rather than another. And the deadline, while short, is the part claimants in these cases most often get right rather than wrong.

Award figures, injury to feelings bands, how these claims compare with whistleblowing, and how sharply they have grown are set out in our companion analysis of what the tribunal data shows about victimisation claims.

Victimisation After You Have Left

A common fear is that bringing a claim will follow you. It is a reasonable fear, and the law addresses it directly.

In Jessemey v Rowstock Ltd [2014] EWCA Civ 185, a man dismissed and bringing an age discrimination claim was given a damning reference by the company's director when he sought work through an agency. The Court of Appeal held that the Equality Act does prohibit victimisation after employment ends, treating the apparent omission in the legislation as a drafting error.

So a refused or deliberately poor reference given because you brought a claim may itself be unlawful victimisation, even though you no longer work there.

The protection is not unlimited. Section 108 requires the treatment to arise out of and be closely connected to the working relationship that has ended, so not every unpleasant act by a former employer will qualify.

Victimisation or Whistleblowing?

If you raised concerns about discrimination, you may have two possible routes. Victimisation under the Equality Act protects people who complain about discrimination. Whistleblowing detriment under the Employment Rights Act protects workers who make a protected disclosure, which can include a disclosure that a legal obligation is being breached.

On our analysis the two perform almost identically once a tribunal rules: 17.7% against 15.9%. The gap is too small to choose between them on, which means the decision is better made on which set of qualifying conditions your situation actually meets.

Time Limits

Act quickly. The time limit for a victimisation claim is currently 3 months minus 1 day from the detriment, not from the protected act. The clock runs from the bad treatment, not from your original complaint.

Where the treatment is an ongoing course of conduct rather than a single act, section 123(3) of the Equality Act treats it as done at the end of that period. Where the detriment is a deliberate decision not to do something, such as refusing a reference, time runs from when the decision was made rather than when you found out.

You must contact ACAS to start early conciliation before submitting an ET1. Time spent in conciliation pauses the clock.

If you are outside the deadline, tribunals can extend it where they consider it "just and equitable". This is more forgiving than the "not reasonably practicable" test governing unfair dismissal. In our analysis the just and equitable test applied in the large majority of time decisions in victimisation cases, and extensions were granted at roughly four times the rate seen under the stricter test. Neither is a strong prospect. The deadline itself is considerably safer than the discretion to extend it.

This area of law is expected to change under the Employment Rights Act 2025. Tribunal time limits are due to increase from three to six months, applying to acts on or after 1 October 2026. Anything that happened before that date is expected to keep the three-month limit. Check for updates.

What a Claim Could Be Worth

Compensation for discrimination and victimisation claims is not capped, as it is not in whistleblowing dismissal claims. The statutory cap that currently applies to ordinary unfair dismissal awards is due to be removed from 1 January 2027 under the Employment Rights Act 2025.

An award may include compensation for financial loss, such as lost earnings, and a separate award for injury to feelings covering the impact on you. Injury to feelings awards are placed in one of several bands, set out in guidance issued by the judiciary and updated each April.

One pattern is worth noting. Where victimisation succeeded, injury to feelings awards reached the upper band more than twice as often as other discrimination awards, and the median ran roughly a fifth higher. Tribunals appear to treat being punished for complaining as a distinct and serious harm.

Two cautions. Cases where both victimisation and another discrimination claim succeeded were worth around twice as much as cases where only the other succeeded, but those are not comparable: a case with two successful claims is a more serious case to begin with. And of the 129 cases where victimisation succeeded alone, only around half carried any money. Winning frequently produces a finding rather than a cheque.

Common Misconceptions

"Victimisation means my manager has it in for me." In ordinary speech, yes. Under the Equality Act, no. It means being punished specifically for raising, supporting or giving evidence about a discrimination complaint. Without that protected act, there is no victimisation claim, however badly you are being treated.

"If my discrimination complaint fails, my victimisation claim fails too." They are decided separately. In our analysis, around 27% of successful victimisation claims came in cases where every other discrimination claim failed.

"I have to be the person who was discriminated against." You do not. Supporting a colleague's complaint or giving evidence in their case are both protected acts in their own right.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is victimisation a type of discrimination? It sits within the Equality Act 2010 but works differently from direct or indirect discrimination. Those depend on a protected characteristic such as race or sex. Victimisation depends on something you did, namely making or supporting a discrimination complaint. It is a separate claim under section 27.

Can I claim victimisation if my discrimination complaint was wrong? Yes, provided you made it honestly. Section 27(3) of the Equality Act removes protection only where an allegation is both false and made in bad faith, meaning dishonestly. Both conditions have to apply. Being mistaken about whether you were discriminated against does not remove your protection.

Does my grievance have to mention discrimination? It must amount to an allegation that someone breached the Equality Act, but the statutory wording says this counts "whether or not express". You do not have to use the word discrimination or cite the legislation. Describing treatment that amounts to discrimination may be enough.

Can my employer victimise me for something I have not done yet? Yes. Section 27(1)(b) covers situations where an employer believes you have done a protected act, or may do one in future. Someone treated badly because their employer expected them to complain may be protected even though they had not yet complained.

How long do I have to bring a victimisation claim? Currently 3 months minus 1 day from the detriment, not from your original complaint. Contacting ACAS for early conciliation pauses the clock. Time limits are expected to increase to six months for acts on or after 1 October 2026 under the Employment Rights Act 2025.

Can my employer victimise me after I have left? Yes, and it remains unlawful. The Court of Appeal confirmed in Jessemey v Rowstock Ltd that the Equality Act covers victimisation after employment ends. A refused or deliberately damaging reference given because you brought a claim could amount to victimisation.

Do I have to prove my employer's motive? Not directly. Under section 136, if you establish facts from which a tribunal could conclude victimisation occurred without another explanation, the burden shifts to your employer. But showing only that you complained and were then treated badly is not enough to shift it, following Madarassy v Nomura International plc.

Is compensation for victimisation capped? No. Compensation in discrimination and victimisation claims is uncapped, as it is in whistleblowing dismissal claims. An award may cover financial losses plus a separate sum for injury to feelings, assessed against bands published by the judiciary. The cap on ordinary unfair dismissal awards is due to be removed from 1 January 2027.

Related Guides

• What the tribunal data shows about victimisation claims
• How employment tribunal claims are decided and how often they succeed
• Raising a grievance at work
• What the data shows about race discrimination claims
• What the data shows about disability discrimination claims

Sources

1. Equality Act 2010, Section 27 (Victimisation) — https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/27
2. Equality Act 2010, Section 136 (Burden of proof) — https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/136
3. Equality Act 2010, Section 123 (Time limits) — https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/123
4. "Victimisation", ACAS — https://www.acas.org.uk/discrimination-and-the-law/victimisation
5. Jessemey v Rowstock Ltd & Anor [2014] EWCA Civ 185, Court of Appeal
6. Madarassy v Nomura International plc [2007] EWCA Civ 33; [2007] IRLR 246, Court of Appeal
7. "Vento bands Presidential Guidance April 2026 addendum", Courts and Tribunals Judiciary, 2026 — https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Vento-bands-presidential-guidance-April-2026-addendum-1.pdf
8. Analysis of published Employment Tribunal decisions, 2000 to 2026