dyslexia517 UK employment tribunal cases involving neurodivergent employees were recorded in 2025. That's nearly double the 265 cases logged five years earlier, according to analysis of HM Courts and Tribunals Service data published by law firm Irwin Mitchell in February 2026.
And the rate of increase is getting faster. The year-on-year jump from 2024 to 2025 was 19%. The most recent six-month period in the dataset recorded the highest case volume seen across the entire five years.
Dyslexia runs through this data as one of the most consistently cited conditions. It peaked in 2023, dipped slightly in 2024, and rose again in 2025. If your employer is still treating reasonable adjustments as optional, these numbers describe where that approach ends up.
What the 2025 numbers actually show
The 95% rise over five years comes from Irwin Mitchell's analysis, published February 2026, using HM Courts and Tribunals Service records. Separate research by employment law firm Fox and Partners, published in November 2025, found a 79% jump in neurodiversity tribunal decisions in a single reporting year, from 102 to 183 cases.
Two conditions now lead in volume: autism and ADHD each reached record case numbers in 2025, with autism-related cases rising to 121 and ADHD cases to 118 (Irwin Mitchell, February 2026). Dyslexia sits alongside them as one of the most frequently cited conditions overall.
Most dyslexia claims don't allege deliberate discrimination. They allege failure to make reasonable adjustments. The legal test for that claim is lower. You don't have to prove your employer meant to harm you. You have to show they knew about your dyslexia, that a working practice put you at a disadvantage, and that they didn't act.
Jenny Arrowsmith, an employment partner at Irwin Mitchell, noted in February 2026: "Many cases arise, not because of deliberate discrimination, but because businesses fail to recognise their legal obligations early enough."
Rise in UK employment tribunal cases involving neurodivergent conditions between 2020 and 2025. Source: Irwin Mitchell analysis of HM Courts and Tribunals Service data, February 2026.
Why are numbers rising? Partly because more people are being assessed and diagnosed, so more employees know their rights. Partly because tribunals are taking a broader view of what reasonable adjustments require. And partly because too many employers are still treating neurodivergent employees as an edge case rather than a legal obligation.
If you've been putting off raising your dyslexia because you're worried about how it will land, these numbers tell you the alternative is worse. Employers who ignore disclosures are the ones ending up in tribunal.
Two 2025 cases worth reading
Greene King: the £24,000 adjustment that cost nothing to make
A kitchen chef with dyslexia was dismissed after struggling to read customer orders from a display screen in a busy pub kitchen. He had disclosed his dyslexia at his interview and was told it wouldn't be a problem. It was immediately a problem once he started work.
He suggested a simple solution: a Bluetooth earpiece connected to the kitchen system that would read orders aloud to him. Greene King refused. He was eventually dismissed. He brought a claim for failure to make reasonable adjustments.
The tribunal found in his favour and awarded him £24,005.63 (People Management, 2025). The adjustment he had requested was inexpensive. His employer had known about his dyslexia from the first conversation. The gap between those two facts is where the tribunal found its judgment.
Capgemini: when manager training is itself the adjustment
A senior technologist at Capgemini UK, diagnosed with ADHD, partially succeeded in a 2025 tribunal claim. The specific finding relevant to dyslexic employees: the tribunal ruled that failing to provide managers with neurodiversity awareness training contributed to discriminatory treatment and amounted to a failure to make reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010 (Sky News, 2025).
This matters because employers have often argued that having a written adjustments policy is enough. The Capgemini ruling says it isn't. If your manager hasn't been trained to understand what your dyslexia affects and how to accommodate it, the policy exists in a document that nobody is applying to your actual work.
It also matters because it's a harder failure for employers to overlook. Refusing a Bluetooth earpiece is a discrete decision. Not training managers is a systemic one. Tribunals are now treating it the same way.
The Greene King case is about the cheapest adjustment being refused. The Capgemini case is about something that requires no budget at all: just training the people who manage you. Both led to tribunal losses. Both were avoidable.
What the Equality Act 2010 requires
The duty to make reasonable adjustments sits in sections 20 and 21 of the Equality Act 2010. It applies when an employer's provision, criterion, or practice puts a disabled employee at a substantial disadvantage compared to non-disabled colleagues. The employer must take reasonable steps to remove that disadvantage.
You don't need a formal diagnosis to be protected. Arrowsmith's February 2026 statement is worth quoting directly: "Employees don't need a formal diagnosis to obtain protection. If their condition has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day to day activities, they are disabled. This triggers the duty to make reasonable adjustments."
The duty is triggered by the employer's knowledge. Once your employer knows, or should reasonably know, that you have dyslexia, the obligation to consider adjustments is live. They don't need to wait for a formal request in a specific format. Knowledge is enough.
What counts as "reasonable" varies by employer size, cost, and what the adjustment actually involves. A FTSE 100 company refusing a £30 earpiece will be treated differently from a small business without the budget. But the obligation to consider adjustments applies regardless.
Dyslexia qualifies as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act where it substantially limits a major life activity such as reading, writing, or learning. EEOC data shows disability charges involving neurological conditions rose from 3.2% of all merit resolutions in FY2016 to 4.2% in FY2023 (EEOC, via Ogletree Deakins, April 2025). For accommodation rights under the ADA, the Job Accommodation Network at askjan.org is the best free resource.
The law doesn't require your employer to acknowledge your dyslexia before the duty kicks in. It requires you to have told them. Once you have, in writing, the clock is running on their obligation to act.
What to do if you're deciding whether to raise this now
The tribunal data doesn't tell you to find a solicitor. It tells you what happens when the internal conversation gets avoided for long enough.
The three-month limitation window for a tribunal claim runs from the date of each discriminatory act. You can't go back and reclaim something that happened eight months ago without very specific legal grounds. Early disclosure, confirmed in writing, means you're protected from the start of any process that goes wrong later.
If you're currently in a new job and haven't disclosed yet: the disclosure decision guide walks through the timing, format, and what to actually say depending on your specific situation.
If you're already in a performance review, under any kind of formal scrutiny, or about to face redundancy scoring: disclose now, in writing, and ask your employer specifically to confirm which elements of your performance are affected by your dyslexia and to discount disability-related issues from any formal scoring. The M&S case covered earlier today shows exactly what happens when this step is skipped. Read the full M&S case analysis here.
If you've raised your dyslexia and been told it's "not relevant" to the process you're in: that response, in writing, is evidence. Keep it.
For UK employees, an Access to Work workplace needs assessment produces a formal report documenting how your dyslexia affects your specific role. That report gives your employer clear, documented guidance on what adjustments to make. It also, in a performance or disciplinary context, provides independent evidence that your difficulties have a named cause. The Access to Work calculator shows what you could claim, including the assessment itself.
What to say when you raise it
Keep the disclosure email short and factual. Something like: "I want to let you know I have dyslexia, which affects my written communication and how I process written information. I'd like to request that any performance review or assessment process takes this into account and that disability-related difficulties are discounted from any scoring." Send it. Keep a copy. Date it.
Your employer's response to that email tells you a lot about what comes next. A constructive response means you work through adjustments together. An evasive or dismissive response means you have a written record of the moment they chose to ignore their legal obligation.
The 517 tribunal cases in 2025 aren't a threat. They're a data point showing that dyslexic employees are raising these issues, that many employers are still getting it wrong, and that the legal system has a clear view of who carries the cost when they do. Give your employer the chance to get it right before that becomes relevant.
The math on this is simple: disclosure in writing costs you a short email. Not disclosing means you have no protection if anything goes wrong. The tribunal numbers confirm which choice more people are regretting.