UK Equality Act 2010
The UK Equality Act 2010 is a comprehensive anti-discrimination law that consolidates over 100 previous UK equality statutes into a single legal framework, prohibiting discrimination against people with protected characteristics - including disability - in employment, education, and the provision of goods and services. Under Section 20, all service providers, both public and private, are legally required to make proactive "reasonable adjustments" to ensure disabled people can access their services, which courts and regulators have consistently interpreted to include websites, mobile applications, and other digital channels.
What is UK Equality Act?
The Equality Act 2010 (EQA) is the primary equality and anti-discrimination legislation in Great Britain, receiving Royal Assent on 8 April 2010 with most substantive provisions coming into force on 1 October 2010. It consolidates and replaces over 100 earlier Acts, regulations, and statutory instruments - including the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 - into one unified framework covering nine protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. For digital accessibility, the most operationally significant provision is the anticipatory and proactive duty in Section 20 to make reasonable adjustments, which requires organisations to remove barriers before a disabled person is actually disadvantaged, not merely in response to individual complaints. The Act applies throughout England, Scotland, and Wales; Northern Ireland retains parallel provisions under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 as amended. In May 2026, the EHRC laid an updated statutory Code of Practice for Services, Public Functions and Associations before Parliament, strengthening practical guidance on disability-related reasonable adjustments.
Who must comply?
The Equality Act 2010 applies to virtually every organisation that provides goods, facilities, or services to the public in Great Britain, regardless of size or sector - including retailers, financial services firms, hospitality businesses, healthcare providers, charities, educational institutions, and public bodies. Employers of any size must also comply with disability-related reasonable adjustment duties toward their employees and job applicants. Website and app owners serving users in the UK are considered service providers under the Act, meaning their digital channels must be accessible to disabled users under the reasonable adjustments duty. Public sector bodies face an additional, overlapping obligation under the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018, which explicitly require conformance with WCAG 2.2 Level AA as the current minimum technical standard.
Key requirements
- Make reasonable adjustments proactively and in advance: the duty is anticipatory, not reactive - service providers must not wait for a disabled person to complain before addressing accessibility barriers.
- Remove or alter physical features, practices, policies, and procedures that place disabled people at a substantial disadvantage compared to non-disabled people (Sections 20-21).
- Provide auxiliary aids and services - including accessible digital formats, screen-reader-compatible content, and alternative-text descriptions for images - where their absence would disadvantage disabled users.
- Ensure websites and mobile applications are navigable without a mouse (keyboard accessibility), have sufficient colour contrast, and use proper semantic markup so assistive technologies can interpret content correctly.
- Do not treat a disabled person less favourably because of something arising in consequence of their disability, unless the treatment can be objectively justified (Section 15, discrimination arising from disability).
- Public sector bodies must additionally publish a written accessibility statement and demonstrate compliance against WCAG 2.2 Level AA under the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018.
- Employers must make reasonable adjustments for disabled employees and job applicants, including adaptations to digital workplace tools, intranets, and HR systems.
Penalties & enforcement
Individuals who experience disability discrimination may bring civil claims in the county court (for service-provider complaints) or employment tribunal (for workplace complaints), and there is no statutory cap on compensation - courts may award damages for financial loss, injury to feelings, and in egregious cases, aggravated damages. Injury-to-feelings awards follow the Vento bands (updated April 2026): lower band £1,300-£12,600 for less serious cases; middle band £12,600-£37,700; upper band £37,700-£62,900 for the most serious cases, with exceptional cases capable of exceeding £62,900. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) holds additional enforcement powers: it can conduct formal investigations, issue unlawful act notices, seek court orders requiring compliance, and enter into binding Section 23 agreements - all of which can result in significant legal costs, reputational harm, and ongoing regulatory scrutiny for non-compliant organisations.
How UK Equality Act relates to WCAG
The Equality Act 2010 does not specify any technical standard by name, but demonstrating conformance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) - currently at version 2.2, with Level AA as the accepted benchmark - has become the recognised way for private sector service providers to show a court or regulator that they have taken proactive, reasonable steps to meet their digital accessibility obligations. For public sector bodies, the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (which operate alongside the EQA) now explicitly reference WCAG 2.2 Level AA as the current minimum standard, confirmed by GOV.UK guidance updated in September 2024. Achieving WCAG 2.2 Level AA is therefore the most effective evidence of compliance across both sectors.
How EqualWeb helps you meet UK Equality Act
EqualWeb's AI Accessibility Widget can be installed on any UK website with a single line of code, automatically remediating approximately 80% of common WCAG 2.2 Level AA issues in real time - helping service providers begin working toward the reasonable adjustments standard required under Section 20 of the Equality Act 2010 without a full site rebuild. The widget handles a significant share of common barriers on the client side, and also provides a profile-based accessibility menu, but achieving full WCAG 2.2 conformance requires expert-led remediation beyond the widget alone. For organisations seeking to demonstrate full conformance and produce the evidence a regulator or court would expect, EqualWeb's Managed Compliance service pairs IAAP/CPWA-certified experts with client-side remediation, continuous monitoring, and a signed Accessibility Compliance Certificate backed by a VPAT/Accessibility Conformance Report and an evidence pack. EqualWeb's Continuous Monitoring provides a live 0-100 compliance score with regression alerts, giving legal and compliance teams ongoing visibility of their accessibility posture rather than a point-in-time snapshot. For UK organisations that publish PDFs - contracts, policies, annual reports - EqualWeb's PDF Tools check, remediate, and serve documents to PDF/UA standards, closing a common but overlooked accessibility gap that can independently give rise to discrimination claims. Together, these capabilities give UK businesses a structured, evidenced path toward meeting their Equality Act obligations across websites, apps, and documents.
UK Equality Act - frequently asked questions
Does the Equality Act 2010 apply to websites and mobile apps?
Who must comply with the Equality Act 2010 accessibility requirements?
Is there a specific compliance deadline for the Equality Act 2010?
What are the penalties for non-compliance with the Equality Act 2010?
What WCAG level does the Equality Act 2010 require?
Official sources & further reading
Related standards & laws
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