Is the gig up? Regulating platform work in the UK
by Sofia Marchetti on 19 Sep 2025
This blog explores what plans to regulate gig-economy work could look like in the UK, suggesting examples officials might look to and the challenges they will face.
Following a digitalisation boom during the Covid-19 pandemic, the notion of ‘‘platform economy’’ is by now ubiquitous. More and more people earn primary or secondary incomes via services offered on digital platforms, as part of a now-established ‘‘gig economy’’. This evolution has caught the attention of regulators, who felt existing laws (e.g., in defining “worker”) did not always capture the full scope of transactions and relationships mediated by such platforms. High-profile cases of delivery drivers’ strikes, such as Wolt riders in Norway or Uber and Bolt drivers in the UK, have brought further attention to platform workers’ demands for improved pay and security.
Worker classification in the UK: a tiered system
In the UK, the current Labour leadership centred ‘‘working people’’ in its 2024 election manifesto. And yet ‘‘working people’’ are not a homogenous group. The UK has three employment classifications (Employment Rights Act, 1996) — “employee,” “limb (b) worker”(or just “worker”) and “self-employed” — with “workers” falling in a sort of middle ground between the other two and thus being entitled only to certain rights associated with employment, such as the National Minimum Wage, but not to others, such as minimum-notice periods. “Workers” are defined as entering any contract (other than a contract of employment) to personally undertake any work or services for another party who is not a client or customer of any business carried on by the individual.
The crux of the debate around the gig economy in the UK is whether platform workers should be granted “worker status” or whether they should be considered self-employed. In 2021, the UK Supreme Court ruled that Uber drivers ought to be classed as workers and to receive all relevant protections befitting that status. In 2023, however, the same court also ruled that Deliveroo drivers were self-employed. Many have pointed out that the need for lengthy and expensive court cases has only highlighted the difficulty in determining where an individual falls within the current framework.
The EU approach: presumption of employment
As they consider new definitions which would extend protections for platform workers, UK government officials will likely look to the example of the European Union’s Platform Work Directive (PWD), adopted by the Council of the EU in October 2024 and published the following month in the EU’s Official Journal. The PWD requires EU Member States to introduce a legal presumption of employment by defining indicators of control and subordination. The presumption can be triggered by workers, their representatives or labour authorities and may be challenged by platforms, which bear the burden of proof. The text also strengthens algorithmic transparency and bans certain automated decisions and the processing of emotional or psychological data. As an additional, and complementary, step, EU legislators are now considering a new initiative on algorithmic management in the workplace.
Member States have two years, or until December 2026, to transpose the PWD into national legislation. While the original Commission proposal in 2022 put forward five criteria for defining the employment relationship between platforms and workers (such as when a platform determines remuneration or sets specific clothing requirements), these were ultimately scrapped, with the criteria now left to Member States to delineate. Member States’ tailored implementation will thus likely provide several nuanced approaches for the UK to consider.
Upcoming UK reforms: Labour’s promise to strengthen workers’ rights
In 2021, the Labour Party published the “New Deal for Working People”, a comprehensive plan aiming to improve the lives of working people. This included a proposal to create a single status of “worker” for all but the genuinely self-employed, in order to replace the current three-tier system. Labour backtracked in 2024, though, acknowledging that implementing the single worker status would take longer than initially thought, and committing instead to consulting on the reform within Labour’s first year of government. Later in 2024, the new Labour government published the next steps of its “Plan To Make Work Pay”, including all proposed employment reforms. Alongside the plan, the government introduced the Employment Rights Bill in October 2024 and committed to consulting on introducing a single status of worker.
The Employment Rights Bill seeks to restructure the labour market as a whole and to tackle employment relationships broadly, rather than focus on those specific just to the platform economy. Crucially, while the Bill expands the rights of employees and workers, it does not update their definition. Thus, until this question of status is addressed, platform workers are expected to remain mostly unaffected by provisions in the Bill. This was despite calls from parliamentarians in both the House of Commons and House of Lords that single worker status be included in the legislation. As the government has not budged, some MPs are calling for a second employment rights bill to address issues neglected by the current one.
In another twist, even amongst those calling for reform, there is little agreement on which changes should actually be made to worker classification. Some, such as the GMB Union (a UK trade union), advocate expanding the scope of ‘‘limb (b) worker’’ status and retaining this alongside ‘‘employee’’ and ‘‘self-employed’’ status, rather than reducing categories to just two (as a single worker status would do). Others have expressed concerns that worker-status reform would come at the cost of flexibility, a benefit valued by many platform workers.
Under scrutiny: the gig economy’s connection to illegal working
Regulating platform work has recently moved higher on the government’s agenda due to the alleged potential of platforms to facilitate illegal labour; i.e., unauthorised or undocumented migrants can illegally find gig work in the UK via digital platforms. In May 2025, the government announced it would expand the Right-to-Work scheme, previously applicable only to employees, to other working arrangements, including online matching services providing the details of individual service providers to potential clients or customers. In practice, this means online platforms will have to perform right-to-work checks on all those using the platforms to sell their services.
Policymakers’ quest to curtail illegal working practices enabled by platforms is likely to impact worker classification as well. For instance, substitution clauses, which allow individuals providing a service to pass that service on to a substitute, have recently come into the spotlight, as these clauses can allow unauthorised individuals to work by taking on the service provision from others. However, these clauses, since the law requires personal service, are also often what allows platforms to argue that riders are not employees to begin with — meaning that the removal of substitution clauses would inevitably affect how platform workers are classified. Confronted by growing public pressure to crack down on illegal immigration, the UK government may not feel it has the space, politically, to ease up on regulating the gig economy.
What’s next
The Employment Rights Bill is currently in its final stages, and the government recently reiterated its commitment to consulting on worker status before the end of the year. The government reshuffle in early September, however — which entailed an overhaul of the Department of Business and Trade, with Peter Kyle MP coming in as new Business Secretary, along with a host of new ministers — may affect this original timeline. The change in leadership may indeed signal a more fundamental shift in direction for the Department.
Inline will be tracking progress on the Employment Rights Bill as well as broader developments on worker status — please get in touch if you have any questions.
Topics: Gig economy, UK politics, Regulation, Technology, Innovation
Written by Sofia Marchetti
Sofia provides policy analysis, monitoring and advice to tech clients from Inline’s London office. Before joining Inline, Sofia worked as a Schuman trainee at the European Parliament and as a research intern at ECA International.
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