How much compensation do breach of contract claims award at an employment tribunal?

Across 10,280 UK breach of contract tribunal cases with a recorded remedy since 2017, the median total award was £4,012 and the largest was £3,449,329.

What percentage of breach of contract claims succeed at an employment tribunal?

Of 11,861 breach of contract claims decided on the merits by UK tribunals, 69% were upheld.

How many UK breach of contract employment tribunal cases are there?

Tribunal Watch has indexed 27,543 breach of contract employment tribunal judgments published on gov.uk since 2017.

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Breach of contract compensation & tribunal success rate — UK data (page 551) | Tribunal Watch

Claim pillar

Breach of contract employment tribunal cases — UK data 2017–present

Name: Breach of contract UK employment tribunal statistics
Creator: Tribunal Watch
License: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Tribunal Watch has indexed 27,543 UK employment tribunal cases involving breach of contract claims, published on gov.uk since 2017. Where compensation was recorded, the median award was £4,012 (the largest £3,449,329) across 10,280 cases. Tribunals upheld 69% of the 11,861 decided breach of contract claims. These cases name 23,137 distinct employers as respondents.

Total cases: 27,543
Median award: £4,012
Claims upheld: 69%
Largest single award: £3,449,329
Distinct employers: 23,137
England & Wales: 24,615
Scotland: 2,928

Compensation in breach of contract cases

10,280 cases with a recorded award

Median: £4,012
Mean: £9,236
25th percentile: £1,600
75th percentile: £10,020
90th percentile: £20,271
Largest: £3,449,329

Figures are the total award recorded across cases that include a breach of contract claim and a published remedy — 10,280 of 27,543 breach of contract cases. Many tribunal judgments decide liability only, with compensation set at a later hearing, so they are not counted here. A judgment combining several claim types contributes its whole award. Nothing here is legal advice or a prediction of any individual outcome.

Outcomes of breach of contract claims

15,112 adjudicated claims

Outcome	Claims	Share
Upheld	8,236	54%
Dismissed	3,625	24%
Withdrawn	1,620	11%
Struck out	1,079	7%
Other	424	3%
Settled	128	1%

Counting only claims a tribunal decided on the merits (upheld or dismissed), 69% of breach of contract claims were upheld — 8,236 of 11,861. Settled and withdrawn claims are excluded from that rate. Outcomes are recorded per claim, so a judgment can uphold one claim and dismiss another.

Breach of contract cases per year

2017–2026

Year	Cases	Trend
2017	321
2018	636
2019	3,862
2020	5,472
2021	3,724
2022	3,561
2023	3,377
2024	2,991
2025	2,653
2026	946

Largest breach of contract awards

Top 8 by total award

Case ref.	Decided	Claimant	Primary respondent	Total award
1404855/2018	5 June 2019	In person For the	University of Southampton	£3,449,329
2202063/2014	8 November 2019	Mr M Epstein For	Government of the State of Qatar	£388,920
1803164/2021	14 September 2022	Ms E Tahir	National Grid UK Limited Heard: 2- 4 May 2023 Deliberations 26 May 2023	£357,004
3304188/2022	28 July 2023	Cyril Gregory	Petro Trace Limited	£340,213
2204168/2021	23 June 2022	Elle Kim	Finablr Ltd	£279,566
1801339/2017	9 May 2018	Miss S J Austin	Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust	£269,114
3320831/2021	30 November 2022	Mr Joh Murphy	Remus Corporation UK Limited (in compulsory liquidation)	£234,410
3305627/2024	6 August 2025	Mr Richard Cooke	Seven Resourcing Limited	£229,119

Top employers — breach of contract cases

20 ranked by case count

#	Employer	Cases
01	Secretary of State for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy	146
02	Secretary of State for Business & Trade	129
03	Royal Mail Group Limited	56
04	Tesco Stores Ltd	50
05	Qube Qualifications and Development Limited (in Creditors Voluntary Liquidation)	48
06	Asda Stores Limited	46
07	Mitie Limited	46
08	The Secretary of State for Justice	46
09	Basketdrop Ltd	31
10	Limited (in Liquidation)	30
11	Marks and Spencer plc	29
12	The Foster Partnership Ltd	29
13	Artificial Solutions UK Ltd (in Liquidation)	28
14

All breach of contract cases

27,543 cases · page 551 of 551 · chronological

Case ref.	Decided	Claimant	Primary respondent	Jurisdiction	Total award
4118882/2014	28 March 2017	EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS (SCOTLAND) Case No: 4118882/2014 Mr G Pokrop	Elite Joinery Manufacturing Ltd st	Scotland	—
4105112/2016	27 March 2017	ETZ 4(WR) EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS (SCOTLAND) Case Nos: 4105112/2016, 4105113/2016 & 4105115/2016 Hearing at Edinburgh on March 20175 Employment Judge: M A Macleod (sitting alone) Sarah-Jane Baxter	Not Present EIH Systems Ltd	Scotland	£5,953
4100012/2017	24 March 2017	Mr J Gallagher	Advocate General for Scotland	Scotland	—
4105782/2016	23 March 2017	(sitting alone) Mr William McGilvary	Represented by: Himself Benaird Ltd	Scotland	£1,200
4114483/2014	22 March 2017	ETZ 4(WR) EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS (SCOTLAND) Case No: 4114483/2014 Hearing Held in Edinburgh on March 2017 Employment Judge: M A Macleod (sitting alone) John Harrower	—	Scotland	—
4104209/2016	21 March 2017	EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS (SCOTLAND) Case No: 4104209/2016 Ms L Jones	Reza Najafian	Scotland	—
4110306/2015	21 March 2017	EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS (SCOTLAND) Case No: 4110306/2015 Mr J Bajcura

Methodology

Cases on this page are identified by first-pass extraction against the locked §4.4 claim-type taxonomy — a judgment enters the breach of contract caseload if breach of contractis tagged in its classification output. A single judgment frequently combines multiple claim types, so the same case may appear on more than one claim-type page. Per-claim outcomes come from the second-pass (LLM-assisted) extraction and are recorded for each claim a judgment decides; the success rate counts only claims a tribunal decided on the merits (upheld or dismissed). Award figures are taken from the remedy section of each judgment where present; cases without a quantified award — because the tribunal only determined liability, or because the remedy hearing is pending — are excluded from the compensation figures. Regional splits follow the tribunal's jurisdiction as recorded on gov.uk. Nothing on this page is legal advice or a prediction of any outcome; for any specific matter the gov.uk judgment PDF linked from each case page is the authoritative source.