Employment Law for Trades: Common Dismissal Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

What dismissal actually means in UK law

Most dismissals that go wrong start with paperwork that was never written.

Dismissal in UK law is broader than "I sacked them". You dismiss an employee when you end their contract, when you do not renew a fixed-term contract that has expired, or when their behaviour pushes them to resign. That last one is constructive dismissal, and it catches more small firms than the others combined.

The bar an employer has to clear is set out in section 98 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. The reason must fall into one of five categories: conduct, capability, redundancy, statutory restriction, or "some other substantial reason". You also have to act reasonably in how you handle it. The ACAS Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures spells out what reasonable looks like in practice. It is short, it is free, and it is the document every trades employer should know.

If you ignore the Code without a good reason, a tribunal can increase any compensation award by up to 25 percent. That is the lever that turns a £8,000 award into £10,000 before legal costs and management time get added in. On a small trades business margin, that is real money.

Mistake 1: Skipping the ACAS process

The ACAS Code is five steps. Investigate, write to the employee with the allegations and evidence, hold a meeting, decide the outcome, offer an appeal. That is it. There is no requirement to have an HR department, a solicitor, or a fancy template library. There is a requirement to actually do the steps.

What I see in small trades firms is a phone call on a Friday afternoon. "Mate, it is not working out, do not come in Monday." That call is the dismissal. Everything that happens after, the texts, the missed pay, the polite WhatsApp from the spouse asking what is going on, makes the case worse. By the time you reach for the ACAS Code, the timeline already reads like a failure of process.

The way to fix it is not complicated. When something serious happens, pause. Send a short letter saying you are investigating, the employee is suspended on full pay, and you will be in touch with a date for a meeting. Gather what you have: timesheets, customer complaints, dashcam clips, photos, witness accounts. Write it down. Send the bundle to the employee at least 48 hours before the meeting along with a written list of the allegations. Hold the meeting. Let them speak. Decide. Offer the right of appeal in writing.

Mistake 2: No paper trail

Records do not need to be perfect. They need to exist and they need to be contemporaneous.

If the conversation never made it into writing, in a tribunal it never happened. That is the single most expensive lesson trades employers learn the hard way. Verbal warnings are fine in the moment, useless in evidence.

You do not need an HR platform to fix this. A shared Google Doc per employee works. A folder in your job management software works. A printed signed sheet in the filing cabinet works. What matters is the date, the issue, what was said, what was agreed, and a signature or acknowledgement from the employee. If they will not sign, note that fact and send them a copy by email so the timestamp lives in your sent folder. Our guide to digital record-keeping for trades covers the systems and templates that make this effortless.

The same applies to performance issues. If an engineer is consistently arriving 20 minutes late, costing you call-backs, or failing safety checks, you write it down at the time. Not three months later when you have decided to part ways. Tribunals see the difference instantly. Contemporaneous notes carry weight. Reconstructed ones do not.

Mistake 3: Treating probation as a free pass

"They were still in their probation, I can do what I want." I hear that one weekly. It is half right, which is the most dangerous kind of wrong.

Until 1 January 2027 the qualifying period for an ordinary unfair dismissal claim is two years. So yes, an employee with under two years' service usually cannot bring an unfair dismissal claim. But day-one rights still apply for discrimination, whistleblowing, asserting a statutory right, pregnancy and maternity, and any of the automatically unfair reasons. A short-service employee who claims they were dismissed because of a protected characteristic does not need two years. They need to file the form.

That changes in stages. Government plans introduced through the Employment Rights Act 2025 mean dismissals taking effect from 1 January 2027 onwards drop the qualifying period from two years to six months. Anyone hired from 2 July 2026 who is still in post on 1 January 2027 lands directly into the new regime. If your hiring patterns are seasonal, this is worth diarising.

Statutory notice still applies during probation. One week if they have been with you a month or more. If their contract says longer, the contract wins. Skipping notice is wrongful dismissal, which is a contract claim. There is no qualifying period for wrongful dismissal. It is small money usually, but it is money you should not be paying.

Mistake 4: Apprentices are not regular employees

Apprentices sit under a different legal framework. Treat them like any other employee and you will be exposed.

This one matters to me. The future of UK trades runs through apprenticeships, and getting dismissals wrong with apprentices does double damage. You lose the worker, you take a chunk out of the apprentice's ability to complete their training, and you set the wrong precedent for the rest of the crew.

Apprentices fall into two contract types. An apprenticeship agreement (the standard modern arrangement under the 2009 Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act) is broadly treated like an employment contract. A traditional common-law contract of apprenticeship is the older format and offers stronger protection still. Either way, courts and tribunals apply a higher bar before they accept a fair dismissal, because cutting an apprenticeship short can damage someone's career prospects in a way that ordinary employment does not.

That means the ACAS process is not a tick-box exercise. You need clear evidence of capability or conduct issues. You need to have actually trained them, supported them, and given them the chance to improve. Capability dismissals stand up only if you can show real, documented help offered first. Gross misconduct still applies, but a tribunal will look closely at whether the behaviour really crossed that line.

Funding matters too. If you dismiss an apprentice without finishing their funded training programme, the levy or government funding implications need a separate conversation with your training provider. CITB grants and apprenticeship funding through GOV.UK both have their own rules on early termination. Read the small print before you act.

Mistake 5: Walking someone off site for gross misconduct

Gross misconduct is conduct so serious that it justifies dismissal without notice, even for a first offence. Theft, fighting, fraud, serious safety breaches, working under the influence. The list looks obvious until you are stood in a van depot at 7am trying to decide whether what you just heard counts.

The trap is this. "Without notice" does not mean "without process". You still owe the employee an investigation, a written statement of allegations, a meeting, and an appeal. The Code applies to gross misconduct dismissals just as much as to capability ones. Skip the process and a tribunal can find the dismissal unfair even if the underlying behaviour was as serious as you said.

I have watched a small heating firm dismiss a fitter on the spot after he refused a safety check, then end up paying out because nobody wrote anything down for three weeks. The fitter had genuinely refused the check. The tribunal still ruled unfair dismissal because no investigation was done, no meeting offered, no appeal heard. The behaviour was real. The process was not. Both have to be there.

What is changing in 2027 and why it matters now

The Employment Rights Act 2025 reshapes the landscape from 1 January 2027. Three changes will affect every trades employer.

First, the qualifying period for ordinary unfair dismissal drops from two years to six months. Any employee who has hit six months' service by 1 January 2027 is in scope from day one. That means the recruit you take on this summer will be inside the new protection by next January if they are still with you.

Second, the statutory cap on compensatory awards is removed. Tribunals will be free to award what they consider just. For a long-serving senior engineer on £45,000, that uplift is significant.

Third, the day-one rights expand further. Statutory sick pay becomes a day-one entitlement from 6 April 2026. Removing the lower earnings limit means a wider group of staff qualify from the moment they start. None of this is a reason to panic. It is a reason to clean up your processes now, before the law shifts, so the habits are already in place.

Using historical job data to spot dismissal risk early

The signals are usually in your data months before they become a dismissal conversation.

Most trades businesses already collect more than enough data to spot performance issues months before they become dismissal conversations. The problem is the data sits in three different places and nobody is looking at it.

If you run a job management platform, your callback rate per engineer is the leading indicator that nobody tracks. A rising callback rate over six weeks is performance worth investigating, not ignoring. The same goes for first-time fix rates, average revenue per job, customer review scores, and the time gap between job complete and invoice sent. These are not HR metrics on paper. In practice they predict employment problems before the problems crystallise.

A simple monthly review pulled out of your FSM platform, your accounting tool, and your reviews dashboard gives you the early-warning system the ACAS Code expects. It also creates the evidence base if a capability conversation eventually becomes necessary. AI tools can summarise the trend lines automatically. The point is not the technology, it is the discipline of looking.

For deeper work on this, our guide to the field service engineer skills matrix covers how to build a structured competency record per engineer. Pair that with the five-day digital onboarding playbook so new starters know what good looks like from week one. The skills matrix, the onboarding record, and the dismissal evidence base are essentially the same document viewed from three angles.

What tradespeople are saying

T

@thebusinessdoc · TikTok

"Can You Be Sacked for No Reason? Understanding UK Employment Law." A short explainer from a UK employment law creator covering when dismissal without a reason is and is not lawful, aimed squarely at small employers.

View video

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@myhrbestieuk · TikTok

"Waitrose employee wins £50k in payout from his dismissal. When joking via text message goes wrong at work. How would you take these text messages?" #tribunaltales #ukhr #employmenttribunal #employmentlaw

View video

T

@ukemployment · TikTok

"Many wonder: Can my employer fire me for something small? Yes, they can. But it is up to you to challenge unfair treatment. Disciplinary hearings: often, dismissals seem unjust. Employees may face unfair treatment or discrimination. Lack of awareness: many employees are unaware of their rights under employment law."

View video

T

@bellethelawyer · TikTok

"The importance of due process." A UK employment lawyer walking through the Ms S Kauser v Inaaya Solicitors tribunal decision, illustrating exactly how a dismissal can be ruled unfair when the procedure is skipped.

View video

EF

ElectriciansForums.net thread

"Failing Apprentice - What to do." A long-running thread on managing an underperforming apprentice. Contributors spell out the procedure: two verbal warnings or appraisals, then one written warning, then a meeting with a representative in attendance, with proper communication of grievances and listening to the apprentice's position before any termination.

View thread

f

UK Construction Workers · Facebook group

"Any advice on unfair dismissal of a 2nd year apprentice?" A post in a UK construction community asking for guidance after an apprentice was let go mid-programme. Replies in the thread circle back to the same point: did the employer follow ACAS, and where is the paper trail.

View post

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Frequently asked questions

Can I dismiss someone in their probation period without going through the ACAS process?+

No, not safely. You still owe statutory notice (one week after a month's service), you still have to follow a basic fair procedure, and day-one rights for discrimination and automatic unfair dismissal still apply. The two-year qualifying period for ordinary unfair dismissal protects you from many claims today, but it does not protect you from discrimination claims or from the 25 percent ACAS uplift if a claim does succeed. From 1 January 2027, six months of service is enough to bring a full unfair dismissal claim, so the safer habit is to run a short, proportionate version of the ACAS process even for probation dismissals.

What counts as gross misconduct in a trades business?+

Theft, fraud, fighting, working under the influence, serious safety breaches, wilful damage to tools or customer property, and gross negligence on a safety-critical task. That last one is the grey area. Refusing a gas tightness test is gross misconduct. Forgetting to log a tightness test is a capability issue. The dividing line is intent and knowledge. Even when the behaviour clearly justifies dismissal without notice, you still owe the investigation, the meeting, and the appeal. Skipping the process turns a justified dismissal into an unfair one.

How long do I keep dismissal records for?+

Six years is the safe answer. Tribunal claims must be filed within three months less a day of the effective date of termination, but appeals, settlement disputes, and follow-on personal injury or discrimination claims can stretch further. Keep the investigation bundle, meeting notes, written outcome, appeal decision, and any settlement agreement together in a single folder per employee. GDPR does not require you to delete employment records after termination, but you should have a clear retention policy and stick to it.

Do I need a written contract for everyone on the books?+

Yes. Since April 2020, every employee and worker must receive a written statement of particulars on or before their first day. That includes apprentices, casual workers, and anyone you call self-employed but treat as staff. Missing contracts make every other employment law issue harder to defend. The Pimlico Plumbers case turned partly on contract wording. Get a solid template, get it signed before day one, and make the same template the starting point for every new hire.

What is constructive dismissal and how do I avoid it?+

Constructive dismissal is when an employee resigns because the employer has seriously breached the contract, often the implied term of mutual trust and confidence. Unilateral pay cuts, persistent unaddressed bullying, withholding agreed hours, and excluding someone from team communications all qualify. The Aura Gas case in 2020 found a heating engineer constructively dismissed after the company refused to pay overtime for inter-job travel he was contractually owed. Avoid it by sticking to the contract, addressing grievances quickly, and never trying to pressure someone out instead of dealing with the issue head-on.

If I get this wrong, what is the worst-case cost?+

Until end of 2026, the compensatory cap is the lower of 52 weeks' pay or £118,223, plus the basic award. Add a 25 percent uplift for ACAS Code failures, employer legal costs of £10,000 to £25,000 for a mid-range claim, and lost management time. From January 2027 the cap is removed entirely, so for a long-serving senior engineer the figure rises significantly. The cost of doing it right (a written process, a contract template, two-minute notes after key conversations) is essentially zero. The cost of doing it wrong scales with the seniority of the employee and the sloppiness of your records.

My verdict

Process protects the firm and the person you are dismissing.

Dismissals are rarely the dramatic moment they look like on paper. They are the end of a slow build-up that, ninety percent of the time, was visible in the data, the complaints, and the gut feeling six months earlier. The trades firms that get this right are not the ones with the biggest HR budgets. They are the ones who write things down, follow the ACAS Code in a proportionate way, and treat every conversation as if it might end up in front of a tribunal. Most never do. The ones that do, are won on the strength of the paper trail. Fix your process this quarter, before the January 2027 changes land, and you remove a category of risk that will quietly take chunks out of trades businesses for the next two years.