Tribunal Intelligence · Yerty Findings

Are employment tribunal cases getting more complex?

Applies to England, Wales and Scotland  ·  Last updated September 2026  ·  Source: Yerty Intelligence Hub — 130,000+ published cases, plus MoJ/HMCTS statistics

Not by claim count. Average identified claim types per case edged down from 2.32 in 2023 to 2.18 in 2026 YTD. Complexity looks more like a shift in claim type: higher-complexity jurisdictions rose from 40.4% to 43.3% of official complaints, and the two longest hearing buckets grew from 8.70% to 15.47%.

As the Employment Tribunal backlog continues to grow, we explored the extent to which case complexity may be contributing to delays. We analysed more than 130,000 cases across four measures: claims per case, claim mix, hearing duration by claim type, and the overall distribution of hearing lengths.

The analysis suggests that complexity is increasingly being driven by the type of claim rather than by more claim types within each case. More complex claim types are also associated with longer hearings, suggesting a possible additional burden on tribunal capacity as those claims become more common.

Cases are not getting much broader

The average number of identified claim types per case has stayed in a narrow range. There is no sign here of cases simply accumulating more and more causes of action. Complexity appears to be coming from somewhere else.

The claim mix is becoming more complex

We grouped official Employment Tribunal jurisdictional complaints into a simple analytical framework. This is a Yerty framework, not a Ministry of Justice classification. It is intended as a proxy for the amount of factual, evidential and legal work a type of claim can require.

How we assessed claim complexity

The number of claim types in a case tells us something about breadth, but it does not necessarily tell us how much legal or procedural work the case is likely to require. We therefore created a simple low / medium / high complexity framework for different claim types.

When we applied the framework to the official jurisdictional complaint data, higher-complexity claim types made up a larger share of the overall mix. Combined with the broadly stable number of claim types per case, that suggests that the type and mix of claims may be a better indicator of procedural complexity than the raw number of claim labels attached to a case.

Hearing length gives us another signal

We then looked at hearing duration as a separate indicator. Our hypothesis was simple: if cases are becoming more procedurally demanding, we might expect a larger proportion of them to require longer hearings.

That is broadly what the data shows. One-day hearings accounted for 70.57% of the hearing dataset in 2018 and 61.53% in 2026. The two longest duration buckets supplied in the dataset — 4–6 days and 6+ days — increased from a combined 8.70% to 15.47%.

Hearing length is not a direct measure of legal complexity. It can also be affected by witness numbers, evidence volume, case-management decisions, listing practices and the particular facts of a dispute. We therefore treat it as a supporting operational signal. Alongside the changing claim mix, however, it points in the same direction: a larger share of tribunal work appears to be concentrated in cases requiring more time and procedural attention.

The wider tribunal system is under pressure

The Ministry of Justice reported that single Employment Tribunal receipts were 28% higher in Q1 2026/27 than in the same quarter a year earlier, while the single-claim open caseload increased 51%. More incoming claims and a larger open caseload make the composition of those claims increasingly important.

Yerty provides information, not legal advice. These figures describe past decided cases and official statistics. They cannot predict the outcome or listing of any individual claim. For advice on your circumstances, consider speaking to a qualified employment solicitor.