Taking one of the UK's biggest grocery chains to an employment tribunal was something that Ryan Toghill says almost took over his life. The deputy store manager at Lidl, who had told his bosses he had been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), was later awarded more than £45,000 after a judge found his former employer had not fully taken that diagnosis into account during the disciplinary process.
"It was all I could think about for 18 months and more," he says.
Toghill was called to a disciplinary meeting after breaking company rules by using equipment he had not been trained to use. After that meeting, he was dismissed for gross misconduct. He successfully appealed the decision and was offered a lower-paid role, which he rejected before taking his case to a tribunal.
The judgement found that reasonable adjustments during the process had not been offered to him, including additional breaks. He had also been described by a manager as showing
"a lack of remorse,"something the tribunal found was clearly linked with his communication differences associated with having ADHD.
"I don't show a lot of emotions,"Ryan explains.
"I could be incredibly happy, angry, upset, or remorseful, and my facial expressions and tone of voice would essentially remain the same."
The tribunal upheld part of his claims for unfair dismissal, wrongful dismissal and a failure to make reasonable adjustments. Lidl says it is
"committed to ensuring that everyone receives the reasonable adjustments, clear communication and support they need to thrive."
Campaigners, lawyers and HR teams say cases like this highlight a shift that businesses should be paying attention to. Thousands of people have been diagnosed as neurodivergent in the last few years, an umbrella term that covers autism, ADHD and other conditions such as dyslexia and Tourette's syndrome.
Since the pandemic in particular, diagnosis rates for ADHD and autism have been rising, and they are featuring more regularly in disputes in employment tribunals. While many people who are neurodivergent do not consider themselves disabled, the Equality Act 2010 may give them protection by recognising their condition as a disability, regardless of whether they have a formal diagnosis.
They are entitled to reasonable adjustments if they can show that their condition has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to do normal day-to-day activities. These are widely defined and are not limited to work tasks.
Cases going to tribunal can be about employers not making those adjustments, but they can also be about how people are treated at work. For example, a 2025 tribunal found a software engineer who had ADHD had faced discrimination because a manager sighed and made other expressions of
"non-verbal frustration"towards him.
"What we're seeing in tribunals is rarely the result of deliberate discrimination,"says Lutfur Ali, a diversity and inclusion adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, the professional body for HR.
"Cases commonly stem from reasonable adjustments being overlooked, performance processes that were never designed with different thinking styles in mind, and managers lacking confidence because they haven't been given the training or the time to have the right conversations."
So, while awareness of neurodivergence has never been higher, why are more cases like this ending up in the legal system? And are businesses struggling to keep up with the needs of the workforce?
Overdiagnosis or underdiagnosis?
Irwin Mitchell is one of the biggest law firms in the UK, and its lawyers say their caseloads increasingly include grievances linked to neurodivergence at work. Using the Ministry of Justice's online judgments database, the company identified 517 employment tribunal cases mentioning neurodivergent conditions in 2025, up from 265 in 2020. The most commonly cited conditions were autism and ADHD.
The live database is limited and gives only a partial picture. The Ministry of Justice says the figures should not be considered official statistics.
Diagnosis rates of ADHD and autism have soared, and waiting lists for assessments on the NHS in England are at record levels, with lists even closing in some areas due to the huge demand. Irwin Mitchell says those long waits have an impact on workplaces too.
"Anecdotally, we're seeing a lot of people that are either threatening to bring claims or actually bringing claims, that don't have formal diagnoses,"says Jo Moseley, a legal director at the firm.
Research from University College London suggests nearly a 20-fold increase in the number of UK adults diagnosed with ADHD between 2000 and 2018. Diagnosis rates for autism were eight times higher in 2018 than in 1998.
Despite these rises in diagnosis and referrals, some studies suggest both ADHD and autism are actually underdiagnosed. In June, the Lancet Regional Health Europe journal published research suggesting that while around 1.2% of adults in England had an ADHD diagnosis, international prevalence data estimates it affects 3-5% of people. The authors of the study said this indicates it could still be under-diagnosed, particularly in older age groups.
Similarly, research by King's College London last year suggested that around 90% of autistic people over 40 remain undiagnosed.
Diagnosis levels aside, there has been a huge increase in awareness of the challenges neurodivergent people can face - whether it is in communication preferences, personal organisation, or sensory needs. In workplaces, many describe
"masking,"a term which means trying to hide their traits in order to fit in - something which can put a huge strain on the person's wellbeing.
"Society is playing catch-up,"says Ben Branson, an entrepreneur who runs a charity called The Hidden 20%, which campaigns for better understanding of neurodivergence. He was diagnosed with autism in 2022.
"The recognition of adult neurodivergence has exploded,"he says.
"But we have always been here, we are just not hiding anymore, and there are millions of people finally understanding why they kept moving jobs, why they didn't fit, why they kept burning out and why they felt so exhausted, who are no longer willing to struggle in silence."
This year's City and Guilds Foundation's Neurodiversity Index found that while employers think they're
"doing better"when it comes to inclusion, neurodivergent employees say they are seeing only small improvements.
The study found employers' confidence levels in their own
"neurodivergent readiness"averaged between 70-75%. However, the proportion of employees who reported feeling psychologically safe telling their employer about their diagnosis, and who believed their organisation understood the impact of their condition, was between 32-38%.
Invisible disabilities
This disconnect between managers and staff is something employment lawyer Jodie Hill is familiar with. Her firm, Thrive Law, specialises in workplace wellbeing and works with both employees and businesses. She set it up in 2018 after getting her own ADHD diagnosis at the age of 35.
"In the last three months, I've seen more than I've ever seen before in terms of enquiries,"she says.
So, what are some employers doing that leads to successful action being taken against them? Hill says one thing that comes up a lot is bosses asking for proof of a formal diagnosis, when this is not the legal test. Another issue can be an employer looking to dismiss someone over performance before considering a possible disability. Both of which could leave them exposed to claims of discrimination.
In the training sessions she carries out for businesses, she says she hears from the employer's perspective that it can feel like
"every other conversation is about people wanting support".
Fears over cost, and concern that doing something for one member of staff means they have to do it for all of them, can lead to what Hill describes as an
"initial dismissiveness"from some employers. But that, she says, comes from a lack of understanding over what can be an
"internal and invisible"struggle.
"There's a mindset from employers that it's very linear… and that all the symptoms are the same every day,"she says.
Another challenge can be determining what constitutes a
"reasonable adjustment,"a sticking point which can be what ends up being decided in a tribunal.
Hill says some employers
"don't know where to start"and wrongly assume that making reasonable adjustments means doing whatever the employee asks.
Some tribunals have shown the limits of what's
"reasonable."In one case, an autistic claimant had requested extensive changes to the recruitment process at the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC), including simplified questions and advance access to test questions. The JAC had already offered extra time and assistance from a friend and denied the extra requests. When it went to tribunal, the judge found the adjustments the person had asked for were
"clearly going beyond what was necessary or reasonable".
Trying to work out what requests are and aren't reasonable can be tricky
While there is not a check list for employers, lawyers stress that they have to be able to justify why they're saying no to something, and show they've looked at alternative options.
Jo Moseley from law firm Irwin Mitchell explains that when it comes to judging what is
"reasonable,"a tribunal would take into account factors like the person's role, and the size of the business.
"Big employers will certainly be expected to do more than small employers,"she says, stressing that many adjustments can cost nothing or very little, such as looking at how meetings are structured, offering regular breaks, or somewhere quiet to work.
In one tribunal last year, the pub chain Greene King was found to have failed to make reasonable adjustments for a chef who was dyslexic and struggled with reading orders.
He had asked for a Bluetooth headset. The tribunal found that the company's failure to provide this adjustment had led to his employment ending. He was awarded £24,000. A spokesperson for Greene King said it respected the tribunal's decision and that it was committed to upholding the highest standards of employee welfare.
"Ultimately, the purpose of an adjustment is to facilitate good performance, not to lower the standard of performance,"says Prof Nancy Doyle, an occupational psychologist.
"Employers are anxious of challenge, anxious about saying or doing the wrong thing,"she adds.
She explains that employers are not expected to keep someone in a job where they're risking safety or delivering less than their peers, but that in some workplaces, managers end up
"covering for neurodivergent staff,"leaving them in a situation where they are
"dependent on kindness, which may ebb away over time."
Daniel Rickman, who runs glazing business Structura, decided not to wait for individuals to ask for adjustments - but instead offer them to all staff. The company introduced flexible working, fidget toys in meeting rooms, and red or green
"busy lights"on desks, that allow staff to indicate whether they're happy to be disturbed.
He says it means the business is
"getting the best out of everybody"and he is retaining skilled staff. However, showing the polarisation around the topic, he says he has also been criticised for being
"woke."
As awareness of neurodiversity has grown, some businesses such as Microsoft and BAE Systems have created targeted hiring programmes to attract neurodivergent candidates, aware of the skills they can bring to their organisations.
'Nobody fits into neat boxes'
Making neurodiversity a part of how workplaces are designed is what Prof Amanda Kirby believes is needed. She's heading up the government's expert panel, set up to look at improving the job chances of neurodivergent people, and says a
"medical"model of providing adjustments is inadequate.
"Nobody fits into neat boxes",she says, adding that training focused on doing x for dyslexia or y for ADHD is
"never going to work."
"It's not neurodiversity over here, mental health over here, unemployment over there,"she says, pointing out that those who are not in employment, education or training, and those moving through the justice system are less likely to have a diagnosis and more likely to be neurodivergent.
Kirby's report is yet to be published, but it is part of the government's wider plans to tackle stubborn levels of economic inactivity that remain higher than before the pandemic.
A Government report in 2024 found autistic graduates are twice as likely to be unemployed after 15 months as non-disabled graduates, and last year, the government's ADHD Taskforce estimated that
"unsupported" ADHD was costing the economy £17bn a year.
The latest official figures show the number of people receiving Personal Independent Payments topping 4 million, the number of those with ADHD as their main condition was around 100,000 in April, up by 30,000 in the last two years. Just over half of these were aged 16 to 24.
The government is investing £3.5bn into personalised employment support for disabled people and those with health conditions in order to address problems with employment levels.
A Department for Work and Pensions spokesperson told the BBC:
"For too long disabled people and those with a neurodiversity condition have been left behind, ignored, and not given the support they need to get into work."
As well as costly, these tribunal claims are becoming increasingly drawn out as the UK's tribunal system creaks. Figures from the Ministry of Justice put the number of open claims at a record high of 531,000.
Jenna Ide, a partner and employment law specialist at Thomas Mansfield Solicitors, says that the backlog adds pressure on employers.
"It can take several years for a case to reach a final hearing,"she says.
"In the meantime, employers are often required to make difficult judgement calls without knowing where a tribunal would ultimately draw the line,"she adds.
Law firms say some tribunals are now being listed for 2030 and the backlog is expected to grow with the Employment Rights Act. From January 2027, this will give workers protection against unfair dismissal after six months instead of only after two years.
"Most people, even conservatively, think that there's going to be a huge explosion just in unfair dismissal claims,"says Irwin Mitchell's Jo Moseley.
Detecting hidden bias in the workplace can be challenging
Not only could this backlog create problems in terms of access to justice, but according to Kirby, rising numbers of tribunals could have another troubling effect.
"Some employers will go, 'these people' are potentially going to cause us lots of problems,"she says, adding that this could lead to a
"hidden bias"in recruitment, where employers consider it too risky to take on someone they believe to be neurodivergent and so find a reason to give the job to someone else.
Ryan Toghill, who says he has not worked since leaving Lidl because of poor health, says his experience has left him conflicted over whether he would tell a prospective employer about his diagnosis.
But despite the challenges, his hope is that workplace changes will
"trickle through businesses"in time.
"You've got to manage people differently if they're neurodivergent,"he says.
"You can get the best out of them, if you adapt a little bit."
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