Businesses face new ‘right to work’ compliance burden as gig economy checks loom
The UK government is moving to extend mandatory ‘right to work’ checks to cover individuals hired under a ‘worker’s contract’, in a move to address gaps in the law in the gig economy.
The Home Office launched a consultation last week as it seeks to clamp down on illegal working.
As a result, for the first time, the right-to-work checks will be extended to cover businesses hiring gig economy and zero-hours workers in sectors such as construction, food delivery, beauty salons, courier services, and warehousing.
It was noted that the rise of ‘workers’ or ‘self-employed’ individuals used by businesses through agencies or casual contract arrangements, known as the gig economy, has resulted in risks associated with illegal working.
Under existing legislation, employers must carry out right-to-work checks before employing someone under a contract of employment. However, those in the gig economy currently fall outside the right-to-work scheme.
Businesses that use the gig economy include ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft, food delivery platforms like Deliveroo and Just Eat, home repairs like TaskRabbit and Amazon Flex.
The government highlighted a recent surge in enforcement, noting a 63 per cent increase in illegal working arrests (from 8,000 to 13,000) and a 51 per cent increase in raids (from 11,000 to 16,000) over the last year (October 2024 to September 2025).
Alex Norris MP, minister for border security and asylum, said: “This consultation seeks views on how this change should be operationalised and enforced and how we can simplify processes to make it easier for compliant employers to fulfil their responsibilities.”
Guidance signals confusion over scope
Law firm Hogan Lovells partner Stefan Martin said: “The consultation is fairly high-level and doesn’t provide draft guidance for comment but rather asks businesses for their current practices and costs involved in carrying out right to work checks and what would be best to include in any future guidance.”
He noted that “it appears the government doesn’t really know the number of business models affected by the proposal”.
“The absence of any draft guidance and the request for information from businesses suggest that the government hasn’t yet got its head around the impact of extending the obligation to carry out right to work checks and/or the cost impact for businesses of doing so,” Martin added.
Tarun Tawakley, partner at Lewis Silkin, pointed out: “Compliance with the proposed rule changes will also bring additional challenges for platforms and similar businesses where there isn’t a physical touchpoint with individuals providing the service.”
“Inevitably, real-time right-to-work checks on substitutes and processes like facial recognition checks will be necessary, which opens up risks of discrimination and other legal risks,” he added.
The six-week consultation is open to businesses to have their say, and the new requirements will be brought in under the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill.
Norris pointed out that, in the future, the government’s controversial digital ID cards plan “will create a simpler, more consistent way for employers to check someone’s right to work, including these new employment checks in the gig economy”.
In the background, the Labour government’s Employment Bill, which includes changes to workers’ rights, also addresses flexible working and the end of ‘exploitative’ zero-hours contracts. Once passed, these changes will take effect in 2027.