Is website accessibility a legal requirement in the UK?

Yes. The UK Equality Act 2010 makes it unlawful to discriminate against disabled people in the provision of services, and websites are explicitly covered. There's no business-size exemption. WCAG 2.2 AA is the practical conformance standard most legal advice points UK businesses towards. Public-sector bodies have a stricter regime under the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018.

What is the purple pound and why does it matter for UK service businesses?

The purple pound is the combined spending power of UK households containing at least one disabled person. It's worth £274 billion a year (Purple Tuesday research). 16 million UK adults live with a disability. A website that excludes them by accident is excluding a significant share of the addressable market on top of carrying legal risk.

What does WCAG 2.2 AA actually require?

Roughly fifty success criteria across four principles: perceivable (alt text on images, captions on video, sufficient colour contrast, resizable text); operable (keyboard navigation, no keyboard traps, enough time, no seizure-inducing content); understandable (clear language, predictable navigation, input assistance); robust (compatible with assistive tech). For most UK service-business websites, the practical work is colour contrast, alt text, keyboard focus states, form labels, and accessible names on interactive elements.

How likely is a UK accessibility lawsuit?

Reasonably likely if you're a public-facing service. UK accessibility claims have grown year on year since 2020, and unlike the US there's no requirement for the claimant to demonstrate actual harm. A complaint from a single user can become a Section 29 case under the Equality Act. The cost-benefit is one-sided: WCAG AA conformance costs a few thousand pounds; defending a claim costs tens of thousands and the reputational damage costs more.

Can a small UK business reasonably get to WCAG AA?

Yes. The basics (colour contrast, alt text, keyboard focus, form labels, accessible names) are achievable on every UK SME website with a competent design system. Modern frameworks like Next.js + Tailwind ship most of the technical baseline by default. The remaining work is content discipline and a one-off audit. Budget £1,500-£3,000 for a proper baseline audit and remediation on a small to medium UK service-business site.

The UK Equality Act and your website: the £274bn purple pound and why WCAG AA is non-negotiable

16 million UK adults live with a disability. The combined spending power of UK households containing a disabled person is £274 billion a year (Purple Tuesday research). The UK Equality Act 2010 requires service providers, including websites, not to discriminate. Most UK service-business websites don't meet WCAG AA, which means they're excluding a sixth of the population by accident, on top of carrying real legal exposure.

Accessibility on a service-business website is not the niche policy concern it's sometimes painted as. It's mainstream commercial common sense. Here's what UK law requires, what WCAG 2.2 AA conformance actually involves, and the handful of moves that close 80% of the gap on a typical UK service-business site.

What UK law actually requires

The Equality Act 2010 makes it unlawful to discriminate against disabled people in the provision of services. Section 29 explicitly covers services provided online. There is no business-size exemption. A sole trader running a one-page website is covered by the same standard as a high-street retailer.

Public sector bodies face a stricter regime under the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018, with explicit WCAG 2.1 AA conformance and accessibility-statement requirements. For private-sector UK service businesses, WCAG 2.2 AA is the de facto reference courts and tribunals look at when assessing whether reasonable adjustments have been made.

WCAG 2.2 AA, translated to plain English

The standard has roughly fifty success criteria across four principles. For a typical UK service-business website, the practical compliance work boils down to seven things:

Colour contrast, body text 4.5:1 against background, large text 3:1. The single most-failed criterion across UK SME sites.
Alt text, every meaningful image has descriptive alt text; decorative images use empty alt attributes.
Keyboard navigation, every interactive element reachable and usable with the keyboard alone, with a visible focus indicator.
Form labels, every form input has a programmatic label, not just placeholder text.
Heading structure, sequential and meaningful (H1, H2, H3) so screen readers can navigate the page.
Accessible names on icon-only buttons and links (aria-label or visually-hidden text).
Resizable text, content stays usable when the user zooms to 200%.

Hit those seven, and you're close to AA on most UK service-business sites. The remaining work is edge cases (video captions, animation thresholds, complex forms) which a proper audit will surface.

The UK legal risk profile

UK accessibility claims have grown year on year since 2020. Unlike the US, there's no requirement for the claimant to demonstrate actual harm; a Section 29 case can be brought on the basis of inaccessibility alone. The legal calculus is one-sided:

A WCAG AA baseline audit and remediation costs £1,500-£3,000 for a typical UK service-business site
Defending an accessibility claim costs £10,000-£40,000 in legal fees alone
Reputational damage from a public claim is usually larger than the legal cost

The expected value of doing the work upfront is overwhelmingly positive even before you count the additional addressable market.

The £274bn opportunity hidden in WCAG AA

The legal frame is the floor. The commercial frame is the ceiling. UK households containing a disabled person spend £274 billion a year. They abandon inaccessible sites immediately and tell others. They're also disproportionately loyal to businesses that get accessibility right.

Practical examples for a UK service business:

A dental practice serving an ageing patient base benefits from larger fonts and clearer contrast, regardless of formal accessibility
A plumber site with proper keyboard focus is easier for everyone using a phone with a stylus or one-handed
Captions on a video testimonial reach customers in noisy environments, on muted phones, and with hearing impairments, same captions, three audiences
Properly-labelled forms reduce error rates and submission abandonment for everyone, not just users of assistive tech

Accessibility, done well, makes the site better for the whole audience. The compliance work and the conversion work are mostly the same work. Treating WCAG AA as "extra" misses the point.

What to actually do

Audit your colour palette. Run every text-on-background combination through a contrast checker. Fix anything below 4.5:1 (or 3:1 for large text).
Audit your images. Every meaningful image needs alt text; decorative images use empty alts. No more missing alts.
Tab through every page. Every interactive element should be reachable and have a visible focus state. No keyboard traps.
Audit your forms. Every input has a real label (not just placeholder text). Errors are announced to screen readers.
Run an automated audit (axe DevTools, Lighthouse, WAVE) on every key page. Triage the issues by severity.
Publish an accessibility statement. Even a short one. It signals intent and gives users a route to flag issues before they become claims.

Six steps. A weekend of work for a competent developer on a typical UK service-business site. The legal exposure disappears, the addressable market expands, and the site gets measurably better for every visitor. There's no serious case for not doing it.