What are reasonable adjustments for ADHD at work? (UK guide)
Reasonable adjustments are changes an employer makes so a disability doesn't put you at a disadvantage at work and UK employers have a legal duty to provide them under the Equality Act 2010. For ADHD that can mean changes to how work is briefed, scheduled and reviewed, and increasingly it means tools, including software like Koala.
Is ADHD covered by the Equality Act?
Usually, yes. The Equality Act 2010 protects you if a condition has a substantial, long-term effect on your day-to-day activities, and ADHD typically meets that test. It's assessed case by case rather than by diagnosis label, but you don't need to use the word "disabled" about yourself to be protected, and many people with ADHD are.
Here's the gap the law doesn't close on its own. The 2023 Neurodiversity in the Tech Sector report found that 40% of neurodivergent employees don't know what support to ask for, only 9% actually request adjustments, and 44% of those who ask don't get what they asked for. Our founder was one of the silent majority: she didn't know workplace adjustments existed, let alone that she was entitled to them. The right is real. Knowing about it is the adjustment most people never receive.
What adjustments actually help with ADHD?
The useful ones change what the work asks of you, and most cost little or nothing:
Written follow-ups after meetings. Decisions and next steps in writing, every time, because working memory empties fast once a meeting ends.
One brief, one channel. Instructions in a single written place rather than scattered across chat, email and conversation.
Protected focus time. One or two meeting-free blocks placed in the person's best energy window.
Deadlines with checkpoints. A mid-point check-in instead of silence until the due date.
Flexibility on when and where. Energy is the real schedule with ADHD, so some control over hours beats rigid nine-to-five presence.
Permission to record meetings or use transcription.
Tools that carry the executive load. Planning, prioritising and breaking work down are the exact functions ADHD taxes. Software that does this is as legitimate an adjustment as a screen reader is for a visually impaired colleague.
Notice what's absent: nothing on that list asks the person to try harder at the thing their brain finds expensive. A good adjustment moves the load; it doesn't relabel it.
Can software like Koala be a reasonable adjustment?
Yes. Assistive software is an established category of adjustment, and there's no rule that says it stops at screen readers and spellcheckers. If the disadvantage is executive function, planning, prioritising, starting and keeping track, then the relevant assistive technology is software that carries those functions.
We make Koala, so weigh our bias, but this is precisely what it was built to be. Koala takes the person's real tasks and capacity and makes their workday for them: the planning, the breaking-down and the daily re-planning are carried by the tool rather than borrowed from the person's focus. It's deliberately a work tool, opened when work starts and closed when work ends, which also makes it an easy fit for an employer-funded adjustment: it lives inside the workday it's meant to support. At $24 a month it sits well below what most employers assume adjustments cost, and well below the cost of losing someone, which UK estimates put at around £30,600 per employee.
For an HR team, the practical sentence is this: a request for Koala, or any planning-support software, can be treated like any other assistive technology request. Trial it, review it with the employee and keep the documentation.
What is Access to Work, and will it pay for this?
Access to Work is a UK government grant that funds workplace support beyond what counts as reasonable for the employer to provide. It can cover specialist software, coaching and support workers, it doesn't have to be repaid, and you don't need a formal diagnosis to apply, a condition that affects your work is enough. You apply yourself through gov.uk rather than through your employer.
It's one of the most underused schemes in the country, largely because the people it exists for have never heard of it. If you're reading this with ADHD and no support in place, Access to Work is the first door worth knocking on.
How do you actually ask for adjustments?
Name the friction, not the diagnosis. "I lose decisions after meetings; written follow-ups would fix it." You can disclose as much or as little as you choose, though Equality Act protection applies when the employer knows or could reasonably be expected to know.
Propose the specific adjustment. Employers say yes faster to a concrete request with a cost attached than to an open question.
Put it in writing. It creates the record that protects both sides.
Trial and review. Frame it as a four-week trial. Low stakes to grant, easy to keep once it visibly works.
If the conversation stalls, Acas guidance on neuroinclusion is the reference to point your employer at, and their own numbers explain why it's worth their attention: the CIPD found one in five neurodivergent employees have experienced harassment or discrimination at work, and only around half say their team has an open, supportive climate.
FAQ
Do I need a formal ADHD diagnosis to get adjustments? For Equality Act protection the test is the effect on you, not the paperwork, though employers commonly ask for some evidence. Access to Work needs no formal diagnosis at all, and the independent ADHD Taskforce's final report (November 2025) made it official doctrine: support should be needs-led and should not require a clinical diagnosis. Don't let a multi-year assessment waiting list stop you from asking for support now.
Can my employer refuse an adjustment? They can refuse what's not "reasonable", judged on cost, practicality and the size of the organisation. Refusing a low-cost, evidenced request is hard to defend, and refusals of documented requests are where tribunal risk lives. The pressure is rising on slow responses too: in May 2026 the Work and Pensions Committee recommended a legal two-week deadline for employers to respond to adjustment requests, with written reasons for any refusal, after evidence that 82% of requests take over four months to implement.
Is software really an adjustment, or just a perk? If it removes a disability-related disadvantage, it's an adjustment. The category already includes screen readers, dictation tools and text-to-speech. Planning-support software like Koala addresses executive function the same way those address vision and reading.
What does an adjustment for ADHD typically cost? Most cost nothing: written briefs, checkpoints, protected focus time. The paid ones are typically tens of pounds a month, against an average UK replacement cost of roughly £30,600 per employee who leaves.