Employment Status: Are You an Employee, Worker or Self-Employed?

Most people never think about their employment status until something goes wrong: holiday pay is refused because "you're self-employed", or a dismissal claim is met with "you were never an employee". Then it becomes the first question in the dispute, because almost every employment right depends on it. The common assumption is that your contract settles the matter. The reality is that the contract is only part of the evidence. A tribunal decides status on how the relationship actually works, under the definitions in section 230 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 and a long line of court decisions.

This guide explains the three categories, the tests tribunals apply, which rights attach to each, and the reform the government is now consulting on. For how status plays out on a zero hours contract specifically, see the zero hours contract rights guide.

What are the three types of employment status?

For employment rights in England and Wales the law recognises three main categories:

• Employee. Someone who works under a contract of employment (s.230(1)). Employees have the fullest set of rights.
• Worker, often called a limb (b) worker after the second limb of the definition in s.230(3). Someone who has agreed to do work personally for another party who is not their client or customer. Workers have a core set of rights.
• Self-employed. Someone genuinely running their own business, whose clients or customers are exactly that. The self-employed have very few statutory employment rights, though some are protected from discrimination (see below).

The categories nest. The legal definition of "worker" includes employees (limb (a)) as well as limb (b) workers, so every employee is a worker, but not every worker is an employee. When a guide or a statute says a right belongs to "workers", employees have it too.

Two other labels cause confusion. Zero hours describes how hours are offered, not a status; a person on a zero hours contract is usually at least a worker and can be an employee. Agency workers are usually at least limb (b) workers, and after 12 weeks in the same role they gain equal treatment on basic pay and conditions under the Agency Workers Regulations 2010.

How do tribunals decide if you are an employee?

There is no statutory checklist for employee status; the test comes from case law. The starting point is still Ready Mixed Concrete v Minister of Pensions (1968), refined by later cases. Tribunals typically ask:

1. Personal service. Do you have to do the work yourself? A genuine, unrestricted right to send someone else in your place is usually fatal to employee status.
2. Mutuality of obligation. Is there an ongoing obligation on the business to offer work and on you to accept it? In Carmichael v National Power (1999) tour guides who could turn down work, and were not obliged to be offered any, were found not to be employees.
3. Control. Does the business have a sufficient right to control what you do, how, when and where?
4. Everything else. Whether the rest of the arrangement fits employment: who provides equipment, whether you take financial risk or can profit from managing the work well, whether you are paid through PAYE with holiday and sick pay, whether you are part of the organisation (a work email, a uniform, line management, appraisals), and how long the relationship has lasted.

No single factor decides it. Paperwork that calls you "self-employed" is evidence, not the answer. In Autoclenz v Belcher (2011) the Supreme Court held that a tribunal must find the true agreement, and can disregard written terms (such as a substitution clause nobody ever used) that do not reflect how the work really ran.

How do tribunals decide if you are a worker?

The limb (b) definition is set out in statute, and the courts apply it in three steps. The government's October 2026 consultation summarises them this way:

1. Is there a contract between you and the business? It need not be written.
2. Do you personally provide the work or services?
3. Are you carrying on a business or profession on your own account, with the other party as your client or customer? If yes, you are self-employed. If no, you are a worker.

The bar is lower than for employee status, which is why many people who are not employees are still workers. Three Supreme Court decisions show how it works in practice:

• Pimlico Plumbers v Smith (2018). A plumber described as self-employed was a worker. He could only be replaced by another Pimlico operative, so his right of substitution was limited and the work was still personal to him.
• Uber v Aslam (2021). Drivers were workers. Uber set the fares and the contract terms, controlled how trips were offered, monitored ratings and could deactivate drivers, so the drivers were in a position of subordination and dependency. The Court also said the written terms are not the starting point: the question is what the statute means, read in light of its protective purpose.
• IWGB v CAC (Deliveroo) (2023). Riders were not workers, because their right to send a substitute was genuine and virtually unrestricted and was used in practice. That made the personal service step fail.

The pattern is consistent. A real and broad right to substitute usually means you are not a worker. A right that is restricted, needs approval or is never used in practice usually does not stand in the way.

Which rights depend on your employment status?

The table is drawn from the government's own summary in Annex A of the October 2026 consultation.

Three notes on the table:

• Unfair dismissal. Ordinary unfair dismissal needs 2 years' continuous service where employment ends before 1 January 2027, and 6 months where it ends on or after that date (Employment Rights Act 2025; see the day-one unfair dismissal rights guide). The automatically unfair reasons need no qualifying period, but they are still employee rights. Workers have related protection from detriment, for example for whistleblowing.
• Discrimination. The Equality Act 2010, section 83 covers anyone working under "a contract personally to do work". That reaches employees, workers and some self-employed people who do the work themselves, as well as job applicants. See the workplace discrimination guide.
• Sick pay and family pay. Statutory Sick Pay and the statutory family payments follow social security rules linked to National Insurance, not the employment rights categories. That is why a limb (b) worker paid through PAYE may be entitled to them.

The genuinely self-employed are protected mainly by their contracts with clients, together with some health and safety duties and, where they do the work personally, the Equality Act.

Is employment status the same for tax?

No. HMRC applies its own tests for tax and National Insurance, including the Check Employment Status for Tax tool and the IR35 rules. The factors overlap, but the questions are separate: invoicing and filing a self-assessment return do not stop you being a worker or an employee for employment rights, and an HMRC result does not bind an employment tribunal.

How do you prove your employment status?

Only an employment tribunal can make a binding decision on status, and it does so when you bring a claim for a right that depends on it. Status is often decided first at a preliminary hearing, because if it fails, the claim fails with it. As things stand, the burden of proof is on the person bringing the claim to show they have the status the right requires. The one exception is the minimum wage: under section 28 of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, a person is presumed to qualify unless the employer proves otherwise.

Because the test is about reality, the useful evidence is evidence of how the work ran day to day:

• the contract and any later versions, including substitution, exclusivity and "no obligation" clauses;
• rotas, shift patterns and app or system records showing how work was allocated and whether you could refuse it without consequence;
• messages and emails giving instructions, setting standards, approving time off or disciplining you;
• evidence of whether you ever sent a substitute, and what happened if you asked;
• payslips or invoices, and who set the rate;
• uniforms, ID badges, a work email, training, appraisals and equipment supplied by the business;
• whether you worked for anyone else, and whether you were allowed to.

The employment tribunal evidence guide covers how to gather and organise this material.

A worked example

This example is illustrative, not a finding on any real case.

Sam delivers parcels for a regional courier firm. The contract calls Sam an "independent contractor" and includes a clause allowing a substitute, but only another courier already approved by the firm, and Sam has never used it. The firm allocates routes through its app, sets the delivery windows and the rate per drop, requires the branded jacket, and removes couriers whose completion rate falls below a target. Sam invoices weekly and pays their own tax. Sam can decline a day's work with notice, and the firm has no obligation to offer any.

Applying the worker test:

1. A contract? Yes, the written agreement and the way it has been performed.
2. Personal service? The substitution right is restricted to approved couriers and unused. On facts like these, tribunals have typically treated the work as personal (compare Pimlico Plumbers).
3. Sam's own business, with the firm as a customer? The firm sets the price, the routes and the standards and can remove Sam for performance, and Sam cannot build the work up as a business. That points away from self-employment (compare Uber).

On this pattern of facts Sam is likely to be found a worker, with rights to the minimum wage, paid holiday and protection from unlawful deductions. Employee status is harder to establish, because neither side is obliged to offer or accept work between days. It would depend on whether, in practice, a pattern of mutual obligation had built up.

Does employment status have its own deadline?

No. Status is a question inside a claim, so the deadline is the one that applies to the right you are claiming. For most claims, ACAS must be notified within 6 months less 1 day of the act complained of, or of the last deduction in a series, where that date is on or after 1 October 2026 (3 months less 1 day if it happened before 1 October 2026). Holiday pay claimed as an unlawful deduction is also capped at the 2 years before the claim. The unpaid wages and unlawful deductions guide explains that backstop, and the employment tribunal deadlines guide sets out the trigger dates and the ACAS pause in full.

A status dispute can add a preliminary hearing to the timetable, but it does not stop the clock for starting the claim.

Is employment status law changing?

Not yet, but reform is on the table. On 14 October 2026 the government opened a consultation, Make Work Pay: employment status reform and protections for the self-employed. It closes at 11:55pm on 8 January 2027. The document is marked "not government policy - subject to consultation". It proposes:

• a presumption of worker status at tribunal for the rights limb (b) workers have, so the business would have to prove a person is genuinely self-employed. The presumption for employee status would not change;
• placing less emphasis on personal service and more on control, so that a substitution clause does not on its own outweigh everything else that points to worker status;
• making repeated misclassification an aggravating feature, so a tribunal can order a penalty where an employer contests status already decided for colleagues on broadly similar facts;
• a possible role for the new Fair Work Agency in enforcement and in helping people assess their status;
• for the genuinely self-employed, a possible right to a written statement and wider health and safety and blacklisting protections.

A single worker status, merging employees and limb (b) workers, is described only as "a longer-term goal". Nothing in the consultation changes the law today. The three categories and the tests above apply unless and until legislation is passed.

Key takeaway

Employment status is decided by how your work actually runs, not by what the contract calls you. If a business has labelled you self-employed but controls your work, sets your pay and needs you personally, you may well be a worker, and possibly an employee, with the rights that come with it. A status dispute is won or lost on evidence, so the contract, the rotas and the messages that show how things really worked are worth keeping from the start.

This article is legal information, not legal advice. Employment status depends on the full facts of each working relationship, and the law may change after the October 2026 consultation, so check the current position on GOV.UK before relying on it.