Injury to Feelings Awards: What the Tribunal Data Shows
Based on 1,125 injury to feelings awards in published Employment Tribunal judgments, June 2014 to July 2026, single-claimant cases only. Band shares are reported on the 918 awards that sit within a band and whose band is certain. Method and exclusions are set out at the end.
Summary of findings
- The median injury to feelings award is £9,000. Half of awards fall between £5,000 and £14,000.
- Awards split almost evenly between the two lowest bands: 50% lower band, 48% middle band. 2% reach the upper band.
- Within a band, awards concentrate at the bottom. 62% of middle-band awards sit in the bottom third of that band; 10% reach its top third.
- The median award has sat on the boundary between the lower and middle bands every year since 2020. Cash awards rise because the bands are uprated; where tribunals place an award within the guidance does not move.
- Scottish awards run lower: median £7,000 against £9,000 in England and Wales.
What tribunals award
| n | mean | 25th pct | median | 75th pct | max | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All (single-claimant) | 1,125 | £10,196 | £5,000 | £9,000 | £14,000 | £51,224 |
| England and Wales | 1,041 | £10,357 | £5,000 | £9,000 | £15,000 | £51,224 |
| Scotland | 84 | £8,205 | £2,500 | £7,000 | £10,552 | £31,500 |
The mean sits above the median because the distribution has a long right tail: a small number of awards in the tens of thousands pull the average up. The median is the better guide to a typical award.
Paragraph 12 of the Presidential Guidance allows a tribunal in Scotland to disapply the Simmons v Castle 10% uplift on reasons. Scottish awards are banded here on the England and Wales figures, so the Scottish median compares amounts, not band position.
Where awards sit against the bands
Band that applied on the date the claim was presented. 918 awards.
918 awards whose band is certain and that fall within a band: lower 455 (49.6%), middle 442 (48.1%), upper 21 (2.3%).
Source: Yerty Intelligence Hub, published Employment Tribunal judgments, June 2014 to July 2026.
| band | n | share | median in band |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lower | 455 | 49.6% | £5,000 |
| Middle | 442 | 48.1% | £14,000 |
| Upper | 21 | 2.3% | £30,000 |
98% of awards sit in the lower or middle band. The upper band, described in the guidance as being for "the most serious cases", received 21 awards in 918.
A further five awards fall outside the bands altogether, three above the upper band and two beneath the lower-band floor, and are left out of the band tables. Both sub-floor awards were confirmed against the judgments; in one, the tribunal described its own £800 award as "lower Vento" when the floor that year was £900.
Position within the band
Splitting each band into thirds:
Where awards sit within each band
Lower n=429. Middle n=419. Upper n=19, indicative only.
Source: Yerty Intelligence Hub, published Employment Tribunal judgments, June 2014 to July 2026.
| band | bottom third | middle third | top third | n |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lower | 40.1% | 32.2% | 27.7% | 429 |
| Middle | 62.3% | 27.7% | 10.0% | 419 |
| Upper | 78.9% | 10.5% | 10.5% | 19 |
The lower band is spread fairly evenly across its thirds. The middle band is not: nearly two thirds of middle-band awards sit in its bottom third. A claim assessed into the middle band in 2026 is far more likely to attract an award near £12,600 than near £37,700. The upper band shows the same concentration on 19 awards, which is indicative only.
The bottom of the middle band and the top of the lower band are adjacent figures, so the band a tribunal names is a weaker predictor of the amount than the band labels suggest.
By protected characteristic
Characteristic is taken from the successful discrimination claim in the judgment that determined remedy. Reported where n ≥ 30.
| characteristic | n | 25th pct | median | 75th pct | mean |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Disability | 413 | £5,000 | £9,900 | £15,000 | £10,661 |
| Pregnancy and maternity | 167 | £5,000 | £8,000 | £12,000 | £9,234 |
| Sex | 117 | £5,000 | £9,000 | £15,000 | £11,173 |
| Race | 96 | £3,000 | £7,500 | £12,000 | £8,683 |
| Age | 32 | £2,000 | £5,000 | £12,365 | £7,956 |
| Characteristic not stated in the judgment | 66 | £7,000 | £11,200 | £16,000 | £12,750 |
| Victimisation, no characteristic recorded | 57 | £4,500 | £8,000 | £12,000 | £8,983 |
Below the reporting floor, n only: multiple characteristics 23, harassment with no characteristic recorded 15, religion or belief 9, sexual orientation 7, marriage and civil partnership 1. No award in the analysis is attributed to gender reassignment.
The median in age cases (£5,000) is half the disability median (£9,900), and race (£7,500) sits below sex (£9,000) on a similar number of cases. Whether that reflects the conduct in those cases, the evidence before tribunals, or something else is not answerable from this data.
By year
Band-certain awards only.
| judgment year | n | median | in lower band | in middle band | median ÷ lower-band ceiling |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 92 | £7,500 | 55.4% | 42.4% | 0.87–0.89 |
| 2020 | 84 | £8,600 | 48.8% | 48.8% | 1.00–1.02 |
| 2021 | 146 | £8,500 | 49.3% | 47.9% | 0.98–1.00 |
| 2022 | 135 | £9,000 | 45.9% | 51.1% | 1.00–1.02 |
| 2023 | 149 | £10,000 | 44.3% | 52.3% | 1.01–1.10 |
| 2024 | 122 | £8,000 | 56.6% | 38.5% | 0.83–0.89 |
| 2025 | 107 | £10,000 | 47.7% | 50.5% | 1.00–1.09 |
| 2026 | 58 | £12,000 | 43.1% | 55.2% | 1.03–1.07 |
2026 is a partial year. The dashed line at 1.00 is the boundary between the lower and middle bands.
Source: Yerty Intelligence Hub, published Employment Tribunal judgments, June 2014 to July 2026.
The last column divides the median award by the top of the lower band that applied when the claim was presented, which removes the annual uprating. A value of 1.00 means the typical award sits on the boundary between the lower and middle bands. Each year is shown as a range because the bands change in April and claims are presented throughout the year. The ratio runs 0.83 to 1.10 across eight years, centred on 1.00, with no trend.
In cash terms the median rose from £7,500 to £12,000, about 60%, while the lower-band ceiling for the claims behind those judgments rose from £8,400–£8,600 to £12,600, about 47–50%. Measured from 2020 rather than 2019, the ratio is flat while the cash median rises 40%. The money goes up because the guidance uprates; the placement inside the guidance does not.
Annual counts are 58 to 149, so a single year's median moves easily: 2024 dips to £8,000 without an evident cause. 2026 is a partial year.
Other heads awarded alongside
Share of the 1,125 awards whose case also carries:
| n | share | |
|---|---|---|
| Interest | 752 | 66.8% |
| Acas uplift (failure to follow the Acas Code) | 189 | 16.8% |
| Interest identified specifically on the injury to feelings award | 78 | 6.9% |
| Aggravated damages | 33 | 2.9% |
| Personal injury | 30 | 2.7% |
Interest is added on top of the award and is not included in any figure above. Under the Employment Tribunals (Interest on Awards in Discrimination Cases) Regulations 1996, interest on injury to feelings runs from the date of the discriminatory act to the day of calculation, whereas interest on financial loss runs from the mid-point of the loss period.
Aggravated damages and personal injury are separate heads, not part of the injury to feelings figure.
Representation
Representation status is recorded for 900 of the 1,125 awards.
| n | median | mean | lower band | middle band | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Represented | 414 | £10,000 | £12,465 | 115 | 195 |
| Self-represented | 486 | £8,000 | £9,122 | 236 | 182 |
| Not recorded | 225 | £7,000 | £8,343 | 104 | 65 |
Represented claimants were more often placed in the middle band than the lower; self-represented claimants the reverse. This is an association, not a measured effect: representation is not randomly assigned, and the group whose status is not stated has the lowest median of the three, so the gap is unlikely to be a clean measure.
How often an award is recorded
Of concluded cases with a successful discrimination claim and an outcome that could carry an award (determined on the merits or by default judgment; strike-out, withdrawal, preliminary dismissal, non-attendance and settlement excluded):
| n | share | |
|---|---|---|
| Award recorded | 2,307 | 62.8% |
| No award, remedy reserved to a later hearing | 438 | 11.9% |
| No award recorded, remedy not reserved | 931 | 25.3% |
| Total | 3,676 |
Only 39 of the 931 had a remedy hearing. For the remainder the likeliest explanation is that liability was decided and the parties then agreed the sum privately, with no further judgment published. Where that happens the figure was never in a public document. This bounds what any study of published tribunal awards can show, including this one.
Method
Yerty Intelligence Hub was used to identify published Employment Tribunal judgments from June 2014 to July 2026 in which an injury to feelings award was made, to bring each case's judgments together, and to read the award from the remedy decision. The analysis covers 1,125 awards, one per case, in single-claimant cases only, before interest. Each award is placed against the Vento bands in force in the year the claim was presented, read from the Presidential Guidance; band shares are reported on the 918 awards whose band is certain and that fall within a band. Awards on claims presented before September 2017, when the current band structure began, are included in the award figures but not in band placement. A sample of awards across the range was checked against the judgment text and corrected where the judgment showed a different figure. Published judgments do not record every award made, so these figures describe published decisions, not all claims.
Yerty research team, November 2026. This is general information, not legal advice.
Sources
- Presidential Guidance, Vento bands, Ninth Addendum (30 March 2026)
- Presidential Guidance, Vento bands, Eighth Addendum (27 March 2025)
- Presidential Guidance, Vento bands, Seventh Addendum (25 March 2024)
- Presidential Guidance, Vento bands, original guidance (5 September 2017)
- Equality Act 2010, s.119 and s.124
- Employment Tribunals (Interest on Awards in Discrimination Cases) Regulations 1996
- Vento v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police (No 2) [2002] EWCA Civ 1871
- Yerty tribunal data: 1,125 injury to feelings awards, single-claimant, published judgments June 2014 – July 2026
Vento bands and injury to feelings · What Is the Average Employment Tribunal Payout? · What Are the Nine Protected Characteristics? Equality Act 2010 Explained
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How to cite this
Yerty (2026). Injury to Feelings Awards: What the Tribunal Data Shows. Yerty Intelligence Hub. https://yerty.co.uk/tribunal-data/findings/injury-to-feelings-awards (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.