Employee, worker or self-employed when an app manages the work (UK)

When software offers the jobs, sets the price, tracks the work and rates it, the people doing that work often hear that they are self-employed partners, not staff. In Great Britain that label is not the end of the matter. The law has three broad categories, employee, worker and self-employed, and which one applies decides which rights a person has. This page explains the tests, using the statute and two Supreme Court judgments about app-based work. It is for people who work through apps and for businesses that run or use them.

The short answer: an employee works under a contract of employment; a worker is anyone who personally does work for another party that is not their client or customer. Workers get the minimum wage and paid holiday; employees also get rights such as unfair dismissal protection and redundancy pay. In Uber (2021) the Supreme Court held that drivers were workers, looking at how the app controlled pay, terms and performance rather than at the written contract. In the Deliveroo case (2023) it held that riders with a broad, genuine right to send a substitute were not in an employment relationship for the purposes of the union recognition claim.

The legal definitions

Section 230 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 sets the definitions (Employment Rights Act 1996, s230):

• Employee: an individual who has entered into or works under a contract of employment, meaning a contract of service or apprenticeship, whether express or implied, oral or written.
• Worker: an individual who works under a contract of employment, or any other contract "whereby the individual undertakes to do or perform personally any work or services for another party to the contract whose status is not by virtue of the contract that of a client or customer of any profession or business undertaking carried on by the individual".

So every employee is also a worker, but not every worker is an employee. The National Minimum Wage Act 1998 uses the same worker definition (National Minimum Wage Act 1998, s54). Someone genuinely in business on their own account, whose customers include the business they work for, is self-employed and falls outside both. Equality law reaches further: the Equality Act 2010 covers employment under a contract "personally to do work" (Equality Act 2010, s83).

Which rights attach to which status

• Workers (including employees): the national minimum wage (see per-task pay and the UK minimum wage) and paid annual leave (Working Time Regulations 1998, reg 13), along with working time limits and rest breaks; see UK rules on software-set rotas.
• Employees only: the right not to be unfairly dismissed (ERA 1996, s94) and statutory redundancy pay (ERA 1996, s135), subject to their own qualifying conditions; see AI and unfair dismissal and AI and redundancy pay.
• Self-employed: none of these employment rights, though equality law may still apply where they contract to do work personally.

These are the definitions in force on legislation.gov.uk as of 31 October 2026. The Employment Rights Act 2025 adds new rights within these categories, for example for zero hours and agency workers, but it does not replace the employee and worker definitions in section 230.

Uber: the app as the source of control

In Uber BV v Aslam [2021] UKSC 5, decided on 19 February 2021, the Supreme Court upheld the finding that Uber drivers were workers (UK Supreme Court, UKSC/2019/0029). Two parts of the judgment matter for any algorithmically managed work.

First, the written contract is not the starting point. The Court said that letting the business decide status by how it words its own standard terms "would reinstate the mischief which the legislation was enacted to prevent" (para 76). Tribunals look at the reality of the relationship.

Second, the Court listed five factors, most of them about how the app ran the work (paras 94 to 100):

• Uber fixed the pay, and drivers had no say in it beyond choosing when and how much to work.
• Uber dictated the contract terms.
• Once logged on, a driver's choice to accept rides was constrained: the destination was hidden until pick-up, and acceptance and cancellation rates were monitored, with drivers who fell below set levels warned and then automatically logged off for ten minutes.
• Uber controlled how the service was delivered, through technology it wholly owned, and used passenger ratings "purely as an internal tool for managing performance and as a basis for making termination decisions". The Court called this "a classic form of subordination that is characteristic of employment relationships" (para 99).
• Uber restricted contact between driver and passenger to prevent any relationship beyond a single ride.

Taken together, the Court found drivers had "little or no ability to improve their economic position through professional or entrepreneurial skill", and that in practice the only way to earn more was "by working longer hours while constantly meeting Uber's measures of performance" (para 101).

Deliveroo: the right to send a substitute

In Independent Workers Union of Great Britain v Central Arbitration Committee [2023] UKSC 43, decided on 21 November 2023, the question was whether Deliveroo riders in Camden had a right to collective bargaining under Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights (UK Supreme Court, UKSC/2021/0155). The Court held that the riders' power to appoint a substitute, which was "virtually unfettered" and applied before and after accepting a delivery, was "totally inconsistent with the existence of an obligation to provide personal service" (para 69).

The Court stressed that the label was not accepted on trust: the Central Arbitration Committee had examined how substitution worked in practice and found, among other things, that riders were not sanctioned for using substitutes and that Deliveroo did not end contracts over acceptance rates or availability, so it was entitled to find that the contract reflected the true relationship (para 70). The two cases turn on the facts: a genuine, unrestricted right to send someone else points away from worker status; tight control through the app over pay, acceptance and ratings points towards it.

What this means in practice

• People working through apps: keep records of how the app sets your pay, what happens if you decline jobs, how ratings are used and whether you can really send someone else. These facts, not the contract's wording, decide your status. Tribunal time limits are short, so take advice early. If you are placed with a business through an agency, see agency workers' rights.
• Businesses running or using platforms: the features that make algorithmic management efficient, such as fixed pricing, acceptance targets, automatic log-offs and rating-based deactivation, are the same facts the Supreme Court relied on in Uber. Review them against the status you claim, and remember health and safety duties for the people you employ; see AI and health and safety in the UK. Workers, not only employees, are also assessed for workplace pension auto-enrolment.

For the EU approach, which presumes employment where there are facts showing direction and control, see the EU Platform Work Directive. Since 1 October 2026, people engaged under a worker's contract and online matching platforms are also within the right to work check rules. This page covers England, Wales and Scotland. It is general information, not legal advice.