Quarterly BAS Due (July–September)
Form 1099-NEC & Contractor Payment Reporting Check
Why this matters.
Under the Equality Act 2010, a website is a “service” and denying a disabled person reasonable access to it can amount to unlawful discrimination — there is no separate UK “web accessibility law” in the way some assume, but the duty to make reasonable adjustments applies just as much online as it does to a shop or office. Public sector and some third-sector websites have an explicit statutory duty under the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018, requiring conformance with WCAG 2.1 AA and a published accessibility statement. Private businesses aren’t named in those Regulations, but the Equality and Human Rights Commission has been explicit that inaccessible websites and apps can breach the Equality Act, and WCAG (now at version 2.2) is treated by courts and regulators as the recognised benchmark for what “accessible” means in practice.
Claims are increasingly real, not hypothetical: county court disability discrimination claims over inaccessible websites and apps have been brought against UK retailers, and the RNIB and other disability charities actively monitor and challenge inaccessible commercial sites. Separately, the European Accessibility Act took effect for many EU markets in June 2025 and applies to UK businesses selling digital products or e-commerce services to EU consumers, adding a second layer of exposure for anyone trading cross-border. With screen reader users, keyboard-only users, and people with visual, motor, and cognitive impairments making up a meaningful share of UK internet users, an inaccessible site is both a legal risk and a lost-customer problem.
