Website Accessibility for UK Small Businesses: What the Law and the Data Say

An accessible website is one that people can use regardless of how they access it — with a screen reader, using only a keyboard, zoomed in to 200%, with captions on, or on a phone in bright sunlight. It also helps older visitors, people with temporary injuries and anyone in a hurry.

The recognised standard is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), published by the W3C. The current version is WCAG 2.2, with three levels: A, AA and AAA. Level AA is the practical target most organisations — and most regulations — work towards.

The government’s Family Resources Survey found that 16.8 million people in the UK — 25% of the population — were disabled in 2023 to 2024, up from 19% a decade earlier. That is a quarter of your potential customers.

The Click-Away Pound survey asked disabled internet users with access needs what they do when a website is difficult to use. 69% said they simply leave and go elsewhere. The 2019 report estimated that behaviour moved £17.1 billion of UK online spending away from sites with barriers. The spend is not lost — it goes to a competitor whose site works.

The Equality Act 2010 requires businesses that provide services to the public not to discriminate against disabled people and to make reasonable adjustments so disabled people are not put at a substantial disadvantage. This duty is widely understood to cover services provided through a website, although the Act does not name a specific technical standard for private businesses.

Public sector bodies have more specific rules. The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018 require their websites to meet WCAG and publish an accessibility statement.

If you sell products or services to consumers in the EU, the European Accessibility Act has applied since 28 June 2025 to certain services, including ecommerce. Microenterprises providing services — fewer than 10 staff and annual turnover or balance sheet of no more than €2 million — are exempt.

This is general information rather than legal advice. If accessibility is a compliance question for your business, speak to a qualified adviser.

WebAIM tests the home pages of the top one million websites every year. In February 2026, 95.9% had detectable WCAG failures — an average of 56.1 errors per page, up from 51 the year before. The same six problems accounted for 96% of everything found:

None of these need a redesign. Most can be checked in minutes with WebAIM’s free WAVE tool and fixed by whoever edits your site.

Accessibility is much cheaper to build in than to bolt on. Before a new build or redesign, ask:

At North & Form, accessibility is part of the build rather than an optional extra: semantic structure, labelled forms, keyboard navigation, sensible contrast and meaningful alt text are included in every project. Automated tools catch a lot, but not everything — so we also check key journeys by hand.