Do employers have a deadline to respond to reasonable adjustment requests?
Right now, no. The Equality Act 2010 requires UK employers to make reasonable adjustments but sets no clock and evidence to Parliament found 82% of requests take more than four months to implement. That may change: in May 2026 the Work and Pensions Committee recommended a legal two-week deadline for employers to respond, with written reasons required for any refusal.
What does the law currently say?
The duty to make reasonable adjustments is real and enforceable, but the timescale is not defined. An employer is expected to act within a "reasonable" time, and what that means gets argued about after the fact, at tribunal, when the damage is already done. In practice the gap between asking and receiving is where most adjustment requests quietly die: the request sits with HR, the manager waits for occupational health, the quarter ends, and the person who asked is still working unsupported.
Four months is the documented average wait. For someone with ADHD asking for planning support or written follow-ups, four months of unsupported work is not a delay. It's the burnout the adjustment was meant to prevent.
What did MPs actually recommend?
The cross-party Work and Pensions Committee published its Disability at Work report on 22 May 2026, concluding that too many disabled people face a "hostile environment" at work. Its chair, Debbie Abrahams MP, noted that the legal duty already exists and is simply not being followed by all employers. The headline recommendations:
A two-week legal deadline for employers to respond to a reasonable adjustment request, modelled on the response window employers already have for flexible working requests under the Employment Rights Act.
Written reasons for any refusal, including whether the employer accepts the person is disabled in law, whether they accept a substantial disadvantage exists, the grounds for rejection and what advice the employer took before refusing.
Telling every new starter about their entitlements, whether or not they've disclosed a disability. This one matters enormously for ADHD, where most people don't know adjustments exist, and many don't yet know about their own neurodivergence.
A public campaign on workplace rights for disabled people.
The backdrop number: the disability employment gap stands at 29.7 percentage points, 52.8% of disabled people in work against 82.5% of non-disabled people.
Will this become law?
Not automatically. A select committee report is a recommendation to government, and the government chooses what to adopt in its response. But the direction of travel is consistent: the flexible working regime already has a statutory response deadline, the ADHD Taskforce told government in November 2025 that support should be needs-led without waiting for diagnosis, and now MPs have proposed putting a clock on the employer's side of the conversation. The thread through all of it is the same: the rights exist, the delay is the discrimination.
What should you do while it's still a recommendation?
If you're the one asking: put the request in writing today, and ask for a response date in the same message. You're doing voluntarily what MPs want to make mandatory, and a dated written request is exactly the evidence that matters if things go wrong. Our guide to reasonable adjustments for ADHD covers what to ask for, and Access to Work can fund support directly with no employer decision needed at all.
If you're the employer: respond to adjustment requests within two weeks as policy, now, before anyone makes you. It costs nothing, it's the strongest signal of the "open, supportive climate" only half of neurodivergent employees say they have, and if the deadline becomes law you're already compliant. Most ADHD adjustments are cheap to grant quickly: written briefs, protected focus time, planning-support software like Koala at $24 a month. The expensive thing, on the evidence Parliament just collected, is the four months of silence.
FAQ
Is there currently a legal time limit for reasonable adjustments in the UK? No. The Equality Act 2010 requires adjustments within a "reasonable" time but defines no deadline. The two-week deadline is a May 2026 recommendation from the Work and Pensions Committee, not yet law.
What if my employer just ignores my request? An ignored request can itself amount to a failure to make reasonable adjustments, which is a form of disability discrimination. Chase it in writing, involve Acas early conciliation if it stalls, and keep every dated message. Delay is evidence.
Does this apply to ADHD? Yes, where ADHD has a substantial long-term effect on day-to-day activities, which it commonly does. The committee's proposal that employers tell all new starters about entitlements would help people with ADHD most of all, since most never learn that adjustments exist.
When would the two-week deadline take effect? Only if the government accepts the recommendation and legislates. Watch for the government's formal response to the report; we'll update this page when it lands.