People who are formally self-employed but in practice work like company staff could find it easier to secure the employment rights they are entitled to. The UK government launched a consultation on employment status and protections for self-employed people on 14 October 2026. These are proposals for change, not new rules that have already come into force.
As the government explains in its statement on GOV.UK, bogus self-employment involves labelling staff as self-employed to avoid statutory obligations, even though their actual working arrangements correspond to a status covered by employment rights. The issue is the gap between the formal label and the conditions under which someone works.
According to external estimates cited by the government, as many as 900,000 people could be at risk of bogus self-employment and losing out on basic employment rights. This is not, however, a confirmed number of people who will gain new entitlements. The statement identifies couriers, delivery drivers, hairdressers and people working in the gig economy — carrying out jobs through digital platforms — as groups potentially affected.
Minimum wage and holiday pay at the heart of the proposals
The consultation, part of the government’s Plan to Make Work Pay programme, is intended to help develop rules that make it easier to access rights such as the National Minimum Wage — the statutory minimum rate of pay — and holiday pay. The government also wants clearer rules for both businesses and people working for them, making it easier to establish which protections apply.
The proposals also cover genuinely self-employed people. For this group, the government is considering a right to written information about individual contracts they enter into, alongside extending protection against blacklisting. Businesses, working people, trade unions and organisations representing the self-employed have been invited to take part in the consultation.
No proposed tax changes
For people working in the UK, the scope of the proposed reform is important: the consultation concerns employment status for the purposes of employment rights. The statement explicitly excludes proposals relating to tax status or the tax framework. The announcement should therefore not be read as a change to the tax rules for self-employed people.
The final shape of the reform and any timetable for its implementation have not been settled. Launching a consultation does not itself create new entitlements — it opens a process of gathering views on how to tackle bogus self-employment and improve protections for working people.
