Free tool · Settlement
What might your employer pay to end this?
A tribunal award and a settlement are different numbers, arrived at in different ways. This works out a negotiating position, shows you what sits behind it, and tells you honestly what strengthens and weakens your hand. Nothing is sent to us.
Your position
About a minute. Worked out in your browser, and nothing leaves this page.
Before tax, not including overtime
Now, or at the date you left
Round down
As set out in your contract
These do not change what a tribunal would award. They change what your employer is likely to pay to avoid one.
Optional. The ex gratia part only, not your notice pay or holiday. Leave blank if no offer yet.
This is the single biggest variable in the tribunal figure, and the tribunal figure is what anchors the negotiation. Be honest, because their adviser will make this argument for them.
Where an offer would sit
Enter an offer above to see it measured against the tribunal position.
Strengthening your position
Weakening your position
Talk it through
Fifteen minutes, free, confidential. You will be told plainly where you stand and what the number should be.
Book a consultationBuild the case first
A settlement improves when the claim behind it is properly quantified. Start with the tribunal arithmetic.
Schedule of Loss calculatorRead first
Take the figures away and read the explanation below. Nothing expires.
How settlement figures workRead this before you sign anything
Who has to sign off a settlement agreement, and why it is not us
A settlement agreement only binds you if you have taken advice on its terms and effect from what the law calls a relevant independent adviser. Section 203(3A) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 sets out who that can be: a qualified lawyer, a certified trade union official, or a certified advice centre worker. Zhan Associates is not a firm of solicitors and cannot sign that certificate.
We tell you this at the start rather than at the end, because it explains what we actually do. The solicitor who signs your agreement is usually paid by your employer, on a fixed contribution, to advise on a document that has already been drafted and a figure that has already been decided. That is a genuine service and you need it. It is not the same as improving the deal.
Our work happens before that document exists: quantifying the claim, identifying the procedural failures that give it weight, and putting the position to your employer or through ACAS Early Conciliation. When terms are agreed, you take the agreement to an independent adviser for sign off, and your employer normally pays towards that cost.
Before you pay anyone, including us
A lot of people already hold insurance that covers employment legal costs and have no idea. It usually arrives bundled with something else, so it never gets read. Check these before you instruct anyone.
- Home contents insurance, often an optional add-on
- Motor insurance, often sold as motor legal protection
- A packaged or premium bank account
- A credit card with added benefits
- Trade union or professional body membership
If you do have cover, contact your insurer before any costs are incurred. Claims are refused for late notification and that refusal is avoidable. We will also tell you honestly where cover tends to stop, which is often at the tribunal door rather than at the process you are in this week.
How to check your coverHow settlement figures work
Settlement is a commercial decision, not an arithmetic one
It is not arithmetic in the way a tribunal award is. It is a decision made by someone weighing cost, risk and inconvenience. Here is what actually moves it.
Three reasons, all rational. Neither side knows it will win, so both discount for that. A hearing costs money and takes many months, and money now is worth more than money later. And a settlement carries no finding against the employer, which is worth something to them but not everything. No one can guarantee an outcome, and any service implying otherwise is not being straight with you.
Two parts that get confused constantly. The first is what you are owed anyway: notice pay, accrued holiday, and statutory redundancy if it applies. That is not a settlement, it is a debt, and an employer presenting it as generosity is testing you. The second is the ex gratia sum on top, paid to buy the waiver of your claims. That is the only part that is genuinely negotiable, and it is the number this page works out.
Yes, but not in a straight line. Very small employers often cannot afford to settle at all. Very large ones can, but have approval chains, budget holders and precedent to worry about, which slows things and sometimes hardens them. Mid sized employers, large enough to have a budget and small enough to decide quickly, tend to be the most movable.
It matters a great deal, and this is the single most common mistake. Once you have gone, your employer has already got what they wanted and their incentive to pay has largely evaporated. If you have a new job as well, you have also removed the loss that gives your claim its value. The strongest moment to negotiate is almost always while you are still there and the problem is still theirs.
Usually yes, modestly. A grievance puts your complaint on the record, starts a process the employer has to run properly, and demonstrates that you are serious. It is not an insurmountable obstacle for them, so treat it as a step rather than a weapon.
It weakens your negotiating position, whether or not the allegations are sound, because your employer believes they have a route to dismissing you without paying anything. That does not mean you have no position. It means the work has to go into the process itself first, since a disciplinary that collapses on procedure changes the arithmetic entirely.
Materially. A discrimination claim adds injury to feelings, which is not capped by reference to your salary and carries interest. A dismissal for making a protected disclosure removes the cap on the compensatory award altogether. Both change what the employer is exposed to if the matter is not resolved, and exposure is what settlements are priced against.
Be careful. Pressure of that kind can cross into unlawful territory and can destroy an otherwise good position instantly. The strength of a whistleblowing case lies in the legal exposure it creates, and that argument is made properly through the process rather than through threats.
Generally yes, if it is properly reasoned and you can show the working. An opening position built on a quantified schedule, which has already discounted honestly for the weaknesses in the case, is much harder to dismiss than a round number. It also removes the other side's easiest move, which is to point at the reductions you ignored.
A free conciliation process run by ACAS, and a required step before most tribunal claims. A conciliator passes positions between the parties. They do not judge the case and they do not advise you. It is often where settlement actually happens, and going into it with a quantified position rather than a hope is the difference between the two outcomes.
The ex gratia part is normally free of tax up to £30,000. Above that it is taxable, so a figure agreed without grossing up leaves you with less than you thought. Notice pay and holiday pay are taxed as earnings in full regardless. Take accountancy advice before agreeing a number, not after.
Six months from the dismissal for most claims where the effective date of termination falls on or after 1 October 2026, and three months less one day where it falls before that. Negotiating does not stop the clock and neither does an internal appeal. Notifying ACAS pauses it, which is one reason to start Early Conciliation rather than drift.
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