How much compensation do unfair dismissal claims award at an employment tribunal?

Across 5,256 UK unfair dismissal tribunal cases with a recorded remedy since 2017, the median total award was £6,310 and the largest was £3,449,329.

What percentage of unfair dismissal claims succeed at an employment tribunal?

Of 14,962 unfair dismissal claims decided on the merits by UK tribunals, 38% were upheld.

How many UK unfair dismissal employment tribunal cases are there?

Tribunal Watch has indexed 39,005 unfair dismissal employment tribunal judgments published on gov.uk since 2017.

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Unfair dismissal compensation & tribunal success rate — UK data (page 779) | Tribunal Watch

Claim pillar

Unfair dismissal employment tribunal cases — UK data 2017–present

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

Tribunal Watch has indexed 39,005 UK employment tribunal cases involving unfair dismissal claims, published on gov.uk since 2017. Where compensation was recorded, the median award was £6,310 (the largest £3,449,329) across 5,256 cases. Tribunals upheld 38% of the 14,962 decided unfair dismissal claims. These cases name 29,405 distinct employers as respondents.

Total cases: 39,005
Median award: £6,310
Claims upheld: 38%
Largest single award: £3,449,329
Distinct employers: 29,405
England & Wales: 35,342
Scotland: 3,663

Compensation in unfair dismissal cases

5,256 cases with a recorded award

Median: £6,310
Mean: £13,942
25th percentile: £2,152
75th percentile: £15,492
90th percentile: £29,802
Largest: £3,449,329

Figures are the total award recorded across cases that include a unfair dismissal claim and a published remedy — 5,256 of 39,005 unfair dismissal 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 unfair dismissal claims

26,083 adjudicated claims

Outcome	Claims	Share
Dismissed	9,235	35%
Struck out	6,422	25%
Upheld	5,727	22%
Withdrawn	3,581	14%
Other	1,012	4%
Settled	106	0%

Counting only claims a tribunal decided on the merits (upheld or dismissed), 38% of unfair dismissal claims were upheld — 5,727 of 14,962. Settled and withdrawn claims are excluded from that rate. Outcomes are recorded per claim, so a judgment can uphold one claim and dismiss another.

Unfair dismissal cases per year

2017–2026

Year	Cases	Trend
2017	529
2018	910
2019	5,944
2020	8,015
2021	5,249
2022	4,871
2023	4,455
2024	4,024
2025	3,572
2026	1,436

Largest unfair dismissal 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
2302179/2017	17 June 2022	Mr C Crow (Counsel) For the	—	£1,009,832
3304188/2022	28 July 2023	Cyril Gregory	Petro Trace Limited	£340,213
1801339/2017	9 May 2018	Miss S J Austin	Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust	£269,114
1600183/2021	27 November 2020	Ms Peak Ong	Aberystwyth University	£264,442
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
3303448/2019	25 March 2021	Scott Neto	Key People Limited	£217,039

Top employers — unfair dismissal cases

20 ranked by case count

#	Employer	Cases
01	Royal Mail Group Limited	311
02	Tesco Stores Ltd	189
03	Asda Stores Limited	152
04	The Secretary of State for Justice	112
05	Mitie Limited	94
06	Marks and Spencer plc	85
07	Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Limited	73
08	Department for Work and Pensions	71
09	Wm Morrison Supermarkets Limited	66
10	Openreach Ltd	64
11	John Lewis plc	63
12	DHL Services Limited	57
13	Amazon UK Services Limited	52
14	Jaguar Land Rover Limited	51
15	Lidl Great Britain Limited

All unfair dismissal cases

39,005 cases · page 779 of 781 · chronological

Case ref.	Decided	Claimant	Primary respondent	Jurisdiction	Total award
1300482/2017	6 April 2017	Mr D Maxwell (counsel) For the	—	England & Wales	—
2206629/2016	6 April 2017	In person For the	—	England & Wales	—
4104557/2016	4 April 2017	C Lucas (Sitting Alone) Dr Joanna J Oliver	—	Scotland	—
4105260/2016	4 April 2017	EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS (SCOTLAND) Case No: 4105260/2016 Mr J Getty	British Gas Services Limited	Scotland	—
4104031/2016	4 April 2017	EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS (SCOTLAND) Case No: 4104031/2016 Ms A Donohoe	East Dunbartonshire Council	Scotland	—
4100183/2017	4 April 2017	Miss K McDonald	The Ocean Rooms Spa	Scotland	£742
4105084/2016	4 April 2017	EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS (SCOTLAND) Case No: 4105084/2016 Mrs R Galloway	Represented by: Ms D Reynolds Quintiles Limited	Scotland	—
4101040/2016	3 April 2017	EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS (SCOTLAND) Case No: 4101040/2016 Mr P Pringle

Methodology

Cases on this page are identified by first-pass extraction against the locked §4.4 claim-type taxonomy — a judgment enters the unfair dismissal caseload if unfair dismissalis 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.