Harassment Claims: What the Tribunal Data Shows
Based on 4,791 concluded single-claimant cases with at least one harassment claim under section 26 of the Equality Act 2010, judgments from 2017 to 2026, of which 271 include a sexual harassment claim. Awards are reported on the 186 cases where harassment was upheld and an injury to feelings award is recorded. Method is at the end.
Summary of findings
- Of harassment claims decided at a final hearing, about one in five succeeds (22.7%). Sexual harassment claims succeed about half the time (51.5%).
- By protected characteristic, sex-related harassment succeeds at a final hearing in 34% of claims, race in 15%. Disability, age and religion or belief sit between 16% and 19%.
- Most harassment claims never reach that point. Across all published judgments, 60% of cases end with the harassment claim dismissed, 18% with it upheld in whole or part, and the rest on time limits or without a decision.
- The median injury to feelings award where harassment is upheld is £8,000. Where harassment is the only Equality Act claim upheld, it is £5,000; for sexual harassment, £10,000.
- The median total award in a successful harassment case is £15,440, and in the typical case injury to feelings is most of it.
How common harassment claims are
Among published discrimination cases, between a quarter and a third include a harassment claim. Sexual harassment is a small part of that: 4% to 8% of harassment cases in any year.
| judgment year | harassment cases | share of discrimination cases | sexual harassment cases |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 252 | 24% | 14 |
| 2018 | 263 | 20% | 17 |
| 2019 | 397 | 20% | 19 |
| 2020 | 384 | 20% | 24 |
| 2021 | 577 | 24% | 46 |
| 2022 | 570 | 26% | 27 |
| 2023 | 635 | 27% | 45 |
| 2024 | 735 | 33% | 38 |
| 2025 | 622 | 32% | 27 |
| 2026 (part year) | 356 | 32% | 14 |
The mix of judgments published changes over the period, so the share is a level for each year rather than a trend. There is no official count of harassment claims to set beside it: the Ministry of Justice records claims by jurisdiction (sex, race, disability discrimination and so on), and harassment is one form of conduct within each.
What else is pleaded alongside
Harassment is rarely the only claim. Of the 4,791 cases:
| also claimed | all harassment cases | sexual harassment cases |
|---|---|---|
| unfair dismissal | 49% | 46% |
| direct discrimination | 41% | 25% |
| victimisation | 40% | 42% |
| reasonable adjustments | 27% | 5% |
| discrimination arising from disability | 22% | 4% |
| whistleblowing detriment | 12% | 12% |
| constructive dismissal | 8% | 7% |
Sexual harassment is pleaded with direct discrimination far less often than other harassment, and with victimisation at the same rate. Constructive dismissal is counted only where the judgment describes the dismissal claim that way, so its share is a minimum.
Success at a final hearing
Success is measured on claims a tribunal decided on the evidence: claims upheld in whole or in part, against claims dismissed after a final hearing. Claims that ended on time limits, were withdrawn, struck out, dismissed at a preliminary hearing or won by default judgment are outside this measure.
Success rate at a final hearing
Claims decided at a final hearing. Sexual harassment n=196. Sex n=739. Sexual orientation n=88. All harassment n=3,661. Religion or belief n=221. Disability n=1,277. Age n=231. Race n=1,219. All harassment is the reference bar.
Source: Yerty Intelligence Hub, published Employment Tribunal judgments, 2017 to July 2026.
| decided at a final hearing | upheld | success rate | |
|---|---|---|---|
| all harassment cases | 3,661 | 832 | 22.7% |
| sexual harassment claims | 196 | 101 | 51.5% |
A case counts as upheld if any of its harassment claims was upheld; the sexual harassment row is the outcome of the sexual harassment claim itself. Sexual harassment claims succeed at more than twice the rate of harassment generally.
By protected characteristic
Claim-level outcomes, for characteristics with at least 30 claims decided at a final hearing.
| characteristic | decided at a final hearing | success rate |
|---|---|---|
| sex | 739 | 34.1% |
| sexual orientation | 88 | 28.4% |
| religion or belief | 221 | 18.6% |
| disability | 1,277 | 18.1% |
| age | 231 | 16.0% |
| race | 1,219 | 14.9% |
Below the reporting floor, counts only: gender reassignment 14, pregnancy and maternity 12. Claims where the judgment does not state the characteristic (599) are not shown.
Race harassment, the second most common type, has the lowest success rate at a final hearing. Sex-related harassment succeeds more than twice as often.
All published cases
Across every published case, whether or not it reached a final hearing:
| outcome | all harassment cases | sexual harassment claims |
|---|---|---|
| upheld | 12.4% | 31.7% |
| upheld in part | 5.9% | 7.4% |
| dismissed | 59.9% | 35.4% |
| out of time or no jurisdiction | 7.7% | 15.1% |
| not decided (withdrawn, struck out, settled) | 14.1% | 10.3% |
| base | 4,791 cases | 271 claims |
Published judgments are the minority of claims: most settle through Acas or are withdrawn before any judgment is published, and in the official statistics for 2025/26 only around one in twenty discrimination claims reached a hearing decision. Sexual harassment claims fail on time limits twice as often as other harassment claims (15% against 8%).
Injury to feelings awards
On the 186 cases where harassment was upheld and an injury to feelings award was made.
| group | n | 25th pct | median | 75th pct | mean |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| harassment, all | 186 | £3,484 | £8,000 | £16,000 | £10,741 |
| sexual harassment | 30 | £7,000 | £10,000 | £20,000 | £14,965 |
| sex-related harassment | 57 | £6,150 | £10,000 | £18,000 | £13,488 |
| disability-related | 43 | £4,000 | £9,000 | £17,500 | £10,628 |
| race-related | 44 | £3,484 | £7,500 | £12,000 | £9,051 |
| harassment the only Equality Act claim upheld | 95 | £2,500 | £5,000 | £12,000 | £8,400 |
| harassment plus another Equality Act claim upheld | 91 | £6,000 | £10,000 | £18,860 | £13,184 |
| all discrimination awards, for comparison | 1,125 | £5,000 | £9,000 | £14,000 | £10,196 |
Below the reporting floor, counts only: religion or belief 8, age 6, multiple characteristics 6, sexual orientation 4; characteristic not stated in the judgment, 16.
The median harassment award is close to the median for discrimination generally. The difference is in what the award compensates. Injury to feelings is awarded once per case, so where another discrimination claim is upheld alongside harassment the figure covers both; where harassment is the only claim upheld, the median falls to £5,000, well inside the lower Vento band. Sexual harassment and sex-related harassment sit higher, at £10,000.
Placed against the Vento bands in force when the claim was presented:
Vento band of injury to feelings awards
Harassment, all n=149. Sex-related n=46. Disability-related n=35. Race-related n=33. All discrimination n=918. Shares are lower, middle, and upper and above.
Source: Yerty Intelligence Hub, published Employment Tribunal judgments, 2017 to July 2026.
| group | n | lower band | middle band | upper band and above |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| harassment, all | 149 | 51% | 44% | 5% |
| sex-related harassment | 46 | 39% | 48% | 13% |
| disability-related | 35 | 60% | 40% | 0% |
| race-related | 33 | 52% | 45% | 3% |
| all discrimination awards, for comparison | 918 | 50% | 48% | 2% |
The band split for harassment matches discrimination generally. Sex-related harassment reaches the upper band around five times as often, on 46 awards. Sexual harassment has too few awards to report band shares. The comparison rows are from Injury to feelings awards: what tribunals award.
Total compensation
In the 182 successful harassment cases where the total award is recorded, the median total award is £15,440 (25th percentile £5,031, 75th percentile £28,969). For sexual harassment it is £20,828 on 29 cases.
Injury to feelings is a median 71% of the total award per case. Pooled across all money awarded it is 41%: in the typical case injury to feelings is most of the award, while in the largest awards financial loss dominates.
An Acas Code adjustment was applied in 14.5% of these cases, a personal injury award in 5.4% and aggravated damages in 4.8%. No published judgment yet applies the preventative-duty uplift under s.124A, which can only arise for sexual harassment on or after 26 October 2024; most such claims have not reached a published decision.
Representation
| claimant | decided at a final hearing | success rate | awards | median injury to feelings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| represented | 1,301 | 28.5% | 62 | £12,000 |
| self-represented | 1,727 | 18.2% | 89 | £7,500 |
| not stated | 633 | 23.1% | 35 | £6,000 |
Represented claimants succeed more often and receive higher awards. This is an association, not a measured effect of representation.
Time to outcome
The median time from presenting a claim to the judgment is 19 months across all harassment cases, and 21 months for cases decided at a final hearing, each with a margin of about six months either way.
Method
Yerty Intelligence Hub was used to identify published Employment Tribunal judgments from 2017 to July 2026 in which a claim of harassment under section 26 of the Equality Act 2010 was made, to bring each case's judgments together, and to read the outcome of each harassment claim and any award from the decisions. The analysis covers 4,791 concluded single-claimant cases; multi-claimant cases are not included in any figure. Sexual harassment is identified from how the claim is described in the judgment. A case is treated as upheld if any harassment claim in it succeeded; by-characteristic figures are at claim level and are minimums, since the characteristic is not stated on every claim. The final-hearing measure follows the Ministry of Justice definition of a hearing outcome, excluding default judgments, preliminary-hearing dismissals and claims that ended on jurisdiction or without a decision; outcomes were checked against the judgment text for a sample across each outcome type. Awards are reported on the 186 cases where harassment was upheld and an injury to feelings award is recorded before interest, placed against the Vento bands in force in the year the claim was presented; the all-discrimination comparison figures are those published in the injury to feelings findings. Time to outcome is measured from the year the claim was presented. The share of claims reaching a hearing is from the Ministry of Justice Tribunal Statistics Quarterly, January to March 2026, table ET_3_R. Published judgments do not record every claim or settlement, so these figures describe published decisions, not all claims.
Yerty research team, November 2026. This is general information, not legal advice.
Sources
- Equality Act 2010, s.26, s.109, s.123, s.124A
- Presidential Guidance, Vento bands, Ninth Addendum (30 March 2026)
- Ministry of Justice, Tribunal Statistics Quarterly: January to March 2026 (published 11 June 2026), table ET_3_R
- Yerty tribunal data: 4,791 single-claimant harassment cases, published judgments 2017–2026
Harassment at Work: Your Rights and What Counts in Law · Vento Bands 2026: What Injury to Feelings Awards Are Worth · Victimisation at Work: Your Rights After Making a Complaint · What Percentage of Employment Tribunal Claims Succeed? 2025/26 Data
How to cite this
Yerty (2026). Harassment Claims: What the Tribunal Data Shows. Yerty Intelligence Hub. https://yerty.co.uk/tribunal-data/findings/harassment-claims (last updated November 2026).Figures reflect the analytical subset used for this question; see our methodology for corpus coverage. Free to cite for non-commercial use with attribution to Yerty. For commercial use, bulk or API access, or AI training, see our Data Use & Citation policy.
Figures derived from Employment Tribunal decisions published by HM Courts & Tribunals Service on GOV.UK, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Analysis © Yerty. Re-use is subject to our Data Use & Citation policy.