The UK disability employment gap, 2026: 29.5 percentage points

The data, in detail

In October to December 2025, the employment rate for disabled people in the UK was 52.8%, and the rate for people who are not disabled was 82.3%. The disability employment gap — the difference between those two rates — was 29.5 percentage points.

Over the decade from October-December 2014 to October-December 2025 the gap narrowed by 4.1 percentage points, because the employment rate for disabled people rose faster than the rate for people who are not disabled. The gap widened slightly during the coronavirus pandemic and has since resumed its slow narrowing trend.

Long-term sickness is the single biggest reason for economic inactivity overall: 31% of all economically inactive UK adults (around 2.8 million people) cite a long-term illness, and that share has remained near record highs throughout 2024 and 2025. Many of those people would work if hiring practices and workplace adjustments were more accommodating — which is also the largest single source of latent UK labour supply.

What's shaping this picture

The Employment Rights Act 2025 introduces day-one statutory sick pay rights for all employees (in force from April 2026), removing the previous lower earnings limit that excluded many disabled workers in part-time or low-paid roles from SSP entirely. For disabled workers this is a material change in the floor of statutory protection.

The Access to Work scheme remains the primary UK government route to funding workplace adjustments (specialist equipment, support workers, travel costs). Awareness is patchy on both employer and employee sides, and processing times have lengthened significantly since 2023. Applying for Access to Work before starting a new role rather than after — where the role is confirmed — reduces friction.

The disability employment gap varies sharply by impairment type. Mental health conditions and learning difficulties carry larger employment gaps than physical or sensory impairments. This matters for sector targeting: the public sector and large employers with mature inclusion programmes (Disability Confident Leaders) measurably outperform on hiring people with mental health and learning differences.

If you're applying right now

• Disability Confident Leader employers (the top tier of the UK government's Disability Confident scheme) commit to guaranteed interviews for disabled candidates who meet the minimum criteria for a role. The full list is published on gov.uk and is worth filtering by when shortlisting employers to apply to.
• Decide your disclosure strategy before you start applying. Disclosing on application opens up Access to Work conversations earlier; disclosing post-offer protects against shortlisting bias but limits your time to put adjustments in place. Neither is wrong, but consistency across an application batch saves time.
• Adjust the CV itself for accessibility friction. OpenDyslexic-friendly fonts, screen-reader-friendly structure (real headings, not styled paragraphs), and avoiding text-in-image elements helps with both ATS parsing and disabled-recruiter accessibility. TAILOR's CV Builder ships OpenDyslexic + voice dictation + read-aloud as the default.
• For NHS, civil service and local government applications, name the adjustment you need at the application stage. UK public sector recruiters are required to provide reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010, the request is logged and tracked, and there is no scoring penalty for asking.