The Employment Rights Act 2025 significantly strengthens workplace harassment protections from 30 October 2026. Yet for charities, community organisations and other organisations that rely on volunteers, there is an important question: do those protections apply to volunteers too?
The answer depends on who is being harassed, who is doing the harassing and, critically, whether the individual is genuinely a volunteer in law.
A genuine volunteer will not normally be covered by the Equality Act’s workplace harassment provisions in the same way as an employee. However, that does not mean volunteers fall outside the harassment risk altogether. In fact, a volunteer can themselves be a third party whose conduct creates liability for an employer.
What changes on 30 October?
From 30 October 2026, employers in Great Britain must take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their employees.
The Employment Rights Act 2025 also introduces direct liability for third-party harassment. An employer must not permit a third party to harass an employee in the course of their employment. For these purposes, the employer will be treated as permitting it where it failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent the harassment.
This third-party protection covers sexual harassment and the other forms of harassment under section 26 of the Equality Act, including harassment related to race, disability, sex, religion or belief, age and sexual orientation.
Are volunteers “employees” under the Equality Act?
Usually, genuine volunteers are not. The Equality Act uses a broader definition of employment than everyday employment law. For Part 5 of the Act, “employment” includes employment under a contract of employment, an apprenticeship or a contract personally to do work.
Calling somebody a “volunteer” does not automatically make them one in law. If the reality of the arrangement involves contractual obligations to perform work personally, the individual may fall within the Equality Act’s employment provisions even if the organisation describes the role differently.
A genuinely voluntary arrangement, however, usually lacks that contractual relationship. Current equality guidance therefore states that volunteers are not generally protected by the work provisions of the Equality Act, although someone described as an unpaid intern or volunteer could still be covered where the reality of their relationship brings them within one of the protected work categories.
The Supreme Court has considered this question
The leading case is X v Mid Sussex Citizens Advice Bureau [2012] UKSC 59. The claimant volunteered as an adviser at a Citizens Advice Bureau. Her volunteer agreement expressly stated that it was “binding in honour only” and was not a legally binding contract. The Employment Tribunal found that no contract existed.
The Supreme Court held that the disability discrimination legislation then governing employment did not extend to her voluntary activity. It also rejected the argument that EU employment equality law required protection to be extended generally to volunteers.
The case pre-dates the current preventative sexual harassment duty, although the underlying distinction remains important: a genuine volunteer without the relevant contractual status does not simply become an employee because they perform useful work alongside paid staff.
If a volunteer is sexually harassed, are they protected by the new duty?
A genuine volunteer will not ordinarily be the “employee” protected by sections 40 and 40A of the Equality Act. This means the strengthened duty to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment does not simply extend to every unpaid volunteer working within an organisation.
Similarly, the new third-party harassment provision is drafted around a third party harassing an employee in the course of that employee’s employment.So, for example, if a customer sexually harasses an ordinary employee, the new third-party provisions potentially apply.
If the same customer sexually harasses a genuine volunteer, those particular employment provisions may not. That distinction can feel counterintuitive when the employee and volunteer are carrying out very similar activities in the same workplace.
There may still be other legal protection
Falling outside the Equality Act’s employment provisions does not mean an organisation can safely ignore harassment of volunteers. Depending on the circumstances, other legal routes may be relevant.
Equality guidance recognises the possibility that a volunteer could sometimes be protected under the services provisions of the Equality Act if the organisation is providing a service to them through the volunteering opportunity. However, this remains legally uncertain and has not been definitively established by the courts. Section 29 itself prohibits discrimination and harassment in the provision of services.
There are other possible routes to volunteer protection including common-law duties of care, personal injury claims, the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and health and safety legislation.
Health and safety law is particularly relevant where the organisation has employees. Employers have duties not only towards their employees, but also towards other people affected by their undertaking, which can include volunteers.
For charities there are further governance and safeguarding considerations. Charity Commission guidance expressly says charities should protect volunteers and staff, maintain bullying and harassment policies, provide reporting routes and act promptly when allegations arise. So the absence of a straightforward employment tribunal claim under section 40 should not be mistaken for an absence of organisational responsibility.
What if the volunteer is the harasser?
This is where the position changes considerably. The Employment Rights Act defines a third party as somebody other than the employer or another employee. A genuine volunteer who is not an employee can therefore be a third party.
Imagine a charity runs a public event using both employed staff and volunteers. One of its regular volunteers repeatedly makes sexual comments towards an employed member of staff.
From 30 October, the fact that the alleged harasser is an unpaid volunteer does not take the situation outside the new third-party regime. The employee is being harassed by somebody other than their employer or a fellow employee. The question for the organisation becomes whether it took all reasonable steps to prevent that harassment.
That might include appropriate volunteer codes of conduct, harassment policies covering volunteers, induction and training, reporting arrangements, supervision and action where previous concerns have been raised.
An organisation that says “they are only a volunteer, so our employment policies do not apply” could therefore create substantial risk. This means it is entirely worthwhile bringing volunteers into anti-harassment training and include them in procedures.
What if an employee harasses a volunteer?
The position is less straightforward. Because the volunteer may not fall within the Equality Act definition of employment, the normal workplace harassment claim under section 40 may not be available to them.
That does not mean the employer should treat the incident differently as a practical matter. The allegation should still be investigated. The employee accused of harassment may have breached the organisation’s disciplinary rules regardless of the employment status of the person affected.
There may also be other legal, safeguarding or regulatory consequences depending on the circumstances. For a charity or organisation heavily dependent on volunteers, having a lower standard of protection for unpaid people would also make little operational sense. Volunteers can leave, complain to regulators, raise safeguarding concerns or pursue other legal remedies even where the specific Employment Rights Act provisions do not apply.
What if one volunteer harasses another volunteer?
Again, the new third-party harassment provision is unlikely to provide a direct claim where the person being harassed is a genuine volunteer rather than an employee. The organisation should nevertheless respond through its harassment, safeguarding and volunteer-management procedures.
Serious harassment may engage other civil or criminal law. Repeated conduct can potentially fall within the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, while sexual assault and other serious sexual conduct can involve the criminal law. The organisation should therefore avoid treating employment status as the test for whether behaviour needs to be addressed.
Be careful with “volunteer” status
For organisations using substantial numbers of volunteers, the first compliance question should be whether everybody described as a volunteer really is one.
Consider the reality of the relationship. Is the individual free to decide whether and when to volunteer? Are they obliged to carry out set hours? Is the organisation obliged to provide work? Are there contractual benefits beyond reimbursement of genuine expenses? Is the person effectively required to provide work personally under an enforceable arrangement?
A highly structured arrangement may need closer legal analysis. The Equality Act also protects several work relationships beyond conventional employees, including contract workers and some office holders. An organisation should therefore avoid assuming that “unpaid” means “unprotected”.
Include volunteers in harassment prevention anyway
For most organisations, drawing a completely different operational boundary between employees and volunteers is unlikely to be sensible. A sexual harassment risk assessment should consider where employees and volunteers interact with each other and with customers, service users, beneficiaries and members of the public.
Policies should explain expected conduct for everyone acting on the organisation’s behalf. Volunteers should have clear reporting routes. Managers should know how to respond where a volunteer reports harassment and how to take action where a volunteer is accused of it.
This becomes particularly important under the new third-party rules because protecting employees may require employers to control the behaviour of people who sit outside the employment relationship. Volunteers are a good example of precisely that category.
So, are volunteers covered?
If the volunteer is the victim: the new workplace sexual harassment and third-party harassment duties do not automatically protect them because those provisions protect employees. Other Equality Act provisions or other areas of law may still apply.
If the volunteer harasses an employee: the volunteer can be a third party, meaning the employer may potentially be liable if it failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent the harassment.
If the “volunteer” actually has a contractual working relationship: the position may be different. The reality of the relationship matters more than the label attached to it.
From 30 October, organisations should know who falls within their workforce, make sure volunteers are incorporated into harassment risk assessments and policies, and recognise that volunteers can be both vulnerable to harassment and a source of third-party harassment risk. For charities and other volunteer-heavy organisations in particular, “all reasonable steps” should mean looking beyond the payroll.
