Dear Minister,

Dear Minister,

The Employment Rights Act 2025 is a meaningful step forward, but as currently written, it contains a number of significant gaps which will leave a large proportion of the UK's independent workforce without protection. The key issues are:

• Sole traders and PSC directors may be excluded: despite their working reality being functionally the same as employees and workers who would be covered. There are approximately 4.38 million self-employed people in the UK who may fall outside the current proposals, depending on how they're contracted.
• NDAs are already the norm in freelance contracts: NDAs are routinely bundled with non-competes and unlimited liability clauses, in language most people cannot afford to have reviewed before signing, and required as a condition for work, not only where an issue has occurred.
• There are rarely routes of escalation: no HR, no grievance process, often no union. For many freelancers who experience harassment or discrimination, the only person to escalate to is the client themselves — who might be the cause of the problem.
• Bullying and harassment are widespread: and disproportionately affect freelancers. The Film and TV Charity found freelancers are significantly more likely to experience bullying than employees, and more than half don't report it for fear of losing work.
• The independent legal advice requirement creates a new financial burden: one that either falls directly on the freelancer, which can be unaffordable, especially as we work with multiple contracts every year, or is absorbed through reduced project fees.
• The mental health consequences are severe and unsupported: only 21.6% of self-employed people feel they have adequate mental health support in the context of work, and the enforced silence of an NDA compounds an already significant isolation problem.
• A growing number of people are in self-employment by circumstance, not choice: nearly 30% of those recently joining self-employment felt they had little other option. These are among the most vulnerable people in the workforce.

Who we're actually talking about

It's tempting to picture the self-employed as people who chose independence. Many did not.

Nearly 30% of those recently joining self-employment felt they had little other choice — a figure that has almost doubled in two years, according to Leapers' 2025 study of over 1,000 self-employed people. Others have been pushed towards self-employment by a poor job market, long-term illness or disability, neurodivergence, or caring responsibilities. Many are classified as self-employed for tax purposes, yet receive none of the legal protections that employment status provides.

And this group is set to grow.

UK unemployment stood at around 5.2% in early 2026, a post-pandemic high, with vacancies falling and hiring contracting, particularly in junior and entry-level roles. Youth unemployment is forecast to reach 17% this year. The OBR has warned that AI could cost the UK jobs without delivering growth in return. As traditional employment becomes harder to find, more people will find themselves working independently by necessity rather than choice, taking freelance contracts, or setting up limited companies simply to earn a living. The self-employed workforce is not a fixed population. It is an expanding one, shaped increasingly by circumstance.

Any reform that treats self-employment as a lifestyle choice misses the economic reality of the modern workforce.

Who falls through the gap, and why the power imbalance is worse

The self-employed, sole traders and PSC directors fall outside the current proposals, even though their working reality is largely the same as employees and workers who would be covered.

For freelancers, signing an NDA is often a condition of getting the work in the first place, before the engagement begins, before trust is established, before there is any relationship at all. Freelancers are often presented with standard contracts they have little ability to negotiate, and saying no to a contract means no to income.

Unlike in employment, there is also no framework requiring a client to justify ending a freelance engagement. A contract simply isn't renewed. No reason is given, and none is required. Discrimination can happen quietly, with no process, no record, and no recourse.

The scale of bullying and harassment, and nowhere to turn

This is not a marginal problem.

The Film and TV Charity's Looking Glass research found rates of bullying, harassment and discrimination in the screen industries running at up to three times the rate of the wider working population. Freelancers were significantly more likely to have experienced bullying than employees — 64% compared to 46%. More than half of those who experienced bullying did not report it, citing fear of losing work as a primary reason.

The groups most affected — people with disabilities, neurodivergent workers, carers, LGBTQ+ workers, women, and people from Black and Global Majority communities — are also those being pushed into self-employment by circumstance rather than choice.

When something goes wrong, a freelancer has no HR function, no legal team, no grievance process, often no union or even colleagues to share the burden or offer advice. The only person to escalate to is often the client themselves. Industry bodies and charities do incredibly valuable work, but are underfunded and may be unable to provide individual legal support at scale.

For most freelancers in difficulty, there is simply nowhere to go.

Leapers' 2025 research found that only 21.6% of self-employed people feel they have adequate mental health support in the context of work. 94% do not feel supported by the government. These are people already navigating considerable pressure alone. An NDA, with no route to support, compounds that significantly.

NDAs are already the norm, and widely overreach

The power imbalance isn't something that emerges over time. It's baked in from the start.

NDAs are standard practice in most freelance contracts, routinely bundled with non-compete clauses, unlimited liability provisions, and other restrictive terms, written in dense legal language most people cannot easily parse.

Most freelancers cannot afford a solicitor to review a contract before signing. Many more feel they cannot challenge terms without risking the work. So they sign, often agreeing to far more than confidentiality around genuinely sensitive materials. In practice, NDAs are regularly used to prevent freelancers from even disclosing that they worked for a specific business. Not to protect trade secrets, but to manage reputation.

The problem these proposals are designed to address already exists at scale in the self-employed population. Extending the protections would begin to address it.

The legal advice requirement needs rethinking

The proposal requires independent legal advice before an excepted NDA is entered into. For self-employed people, this creates a real and tangible problem which adds risk against freelancers in two ways.

If the cost falls to the freelancer, it is simply unaffordable for many. Our 2025 research found over 40% of self-employed people reported poor financial health, with 45% seeing their income fall during the year. Legal advice at £200 to £400 per hour is not a realistic ask. Perhaps it might be for a one-off project, but freelancers work with multiple clients on multiple contracts each year.

If the cost falls to the hirer, it likely comes directly out of the project budget, which in practice means it comes out of the freelancer's fee.

Either way, the financial burden lands on the person with least power in the relationship.

Without a funded or subsidised route to access independent advice, the requirement disadvantages the freelancer.

The mental health burden

Leapers exists because self-employment carries distinct mental health risks that employed workers don't face in the same way. Isolation among the self-employed runs at two to three times the rate of the general workforce. Only 22% of our 2025 research group reported good mental health overall.

An NDA imposes enforced silence on top of that isolation, with no colleagues, no process, and often no one who even knows what happened. The research is clear that the inability to speak about an experience significantly worsens outcomes.

For those pushed into self-employment by illness, disability, neurodivergence, or caring responsibilities, the burden is heavier still.

In the worst cases, bullying or harassment leads to the individual being unable to work at all. Without paid sick, compassionate leave or holiday, that inability to work compounds immediately into financial crisis — with consequences not only for the individual, but for the state.

Our Recommendations

1. Extend the NDA protections explicitly to cover sole traders providing personal services directly to clients, under all circumstances.
2. Extend the protections to natural persons operating through single-director limited companies where the individual is, in substance, the only person doing the work.
3. Apply a functional test for coverage: protections should apply wherever a real person is providing personal services under conditions of economic dependence, regardless of the legal form of the arrangement.
4. Ensure that any independent advice requirement comes with a funded or subsidised route for self-employed people to access it, and that the cost cannot simply be passed back through reduced project fees.
5. Recognise that self-employed workers face the same harms as employees in this context, and that extending these protections to cover them is a necessary step.

The Prime Minister said this week: "Small businesses are the backbone of our economy — run by people who take risks, create jobs and keep communities going. This government is firmly on their side." This is an opportunity to demonstrate that support, by including small business owners, freelancers and the self-employed in the recommendations of this consultation.