PIP and work

Introduction

In October, the DWP announced further funding for its Connect to Work programme, putting employment advice into health settings.1​ This is just the latest in a series of announcements about the government’s drive to increase employment among sick and disabled people.

PIP is certainly not an out-of-work benefit. About 16 per cent of PIP recipients are in paid employment – and it is estimated that a much higher rate, about 41 per cent, of new PIP applicants are working.2 Yet some claimants understandably fear that being able to manage paid work might undermine their account of their functional difficulties – and this can be borne out in decision making.

Recent Upper Tribunal decisions helpfully highlight some recurring DWP and tribunal errors, providing new authority for challenging decisions.

‘The tasks I do at work aren’t genuinely comparable to activity X’

Information about non-PIP activities like work can sometimes be legitimately used to draw inferences for PIP. For example, someone whose job involves mathematical ability and organisational skills might reasonably see conclusions drawn about activity 10, and someone who does a cleaning job might see this reflected in an assessment of their physical abilities. However, this should only be the case where the task in question is genuinely comparable.

In JM v SSWP (PIP) [2024] UKUT 283 (AAC), the DWP and First-tier Tribunal rejected an autistic claimant’s evidence about her difficulties with the PIP activities, drawing inferences instead from her ability to go to college and a work placement, shop online, use social media and play video games. These inferences were criticised in the Upper Tribunal, where Judge Fitzpatrick quoted approvingly from the Northern Ireland decision of C25/18-19 (PIP), which was about driving:

‘It is legitimate for a tribunal to consider how the actions involved [eg, in a particular job] may read across into the scheduled daily living and mobility activities. Nevertheless, that general principle is subject to the qualification that the activity in question is genuinely comparable and that it is done with the same level or regularity as the scheduled activity.’

‘My abilities at work aren’t representative of my life outside of work’

The DWP and the tribunal must also be careful about wholly relying on tasks completed at work, to the exclusion of other evidence, when drawing conclusions about the rest of the claimant’s daily life. In KW v SSWP (PIP) [2024] UKUT 410 (AAC) the appellant, a GP receptionist, had received 0 points on appeal for difficulties with engaging socially. The First-tier Tribunal had described her job as ‘completely inconsistent with somebody who claims to struggle to meet new people’. Remitting the case for a new hearing, the Upper Tribunal concluded that ‘there is nothing wrong per se with the [First-tier Tribunal] taking relevant and genuinely comparable activities into account (…) [but the Tribunal] has failed to consider what may be entailed when the claimant engages with people face to face generally outside the work environment.’ (original emphasis).

Similarly, in the Northern Ireland case of CCB v DfC (PIP) [2025] NICom 7, Commissioner Stockman highlighted the risks of considering work status to the exclusion of other evidence, stating that ‘whereas the tribunal has made clear findings that reject the appellant’s evidence, based on her employment and her practice of driving to work, there is merit in the submissions of the parties as to the lack of findings regarding the appellant’s medical conditions and their effects on her’.3

‘I’m worn out after work’

In 2024, a particularly useful decision for working PIP claimants was made in AE v SSWP [2024] UKUT 381 (AAC). The appellant, who had chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and worked 30 hours a week as an NHS secretary, had unsuccessfully submitted at the First-tier Tribunal that she needed supervision and assistance to prepare food because of extreme fatigue. Judge Stout in the Upper Tribunal concluded that ‘the appellant’s ability to cook in the evening needed to be judged by reference to how tired she was after work’ but found that the First-Tier Tribunal had instead ‘reasoned from the appellant’s functioning at work that she could prepare a meal in the evening’. Judge Stout concluded: ‘That reasoning simply does not address the appellant’s case that work makes her so tired that she is not able to function normally in the evening. In the context of this case, that reasoning is perverse, and it betrays the tribunal’s failure properly to direct itself by reference to the correct legal principles.’

While fact-specific, the general principle in AE is likely to be helpful in activity 1 cases, and cases involving other time-sensitive PIP activities. Most recently, in EW v SSWP [2025] UKUT 307 (AAC), which concerned PIP activities 1, 7 and 10, the Upper Tribunal allowed the appeal and remitted the case for a new hearing ‘because the tribunal should have considered the claimant’s ability to carry out the relevant activities at the times when it was reasonable for her to carry them out. It was reasonable for the claimant to go out to work, and where it was reasonable for the claimant to carry out an activity having completed a day’s work, her ability to do so should be assessed on that basis.’

‘I have to go to great lengths to manage my needs at work’

Sometimes a PIP claimant will sustain their employment against the odds. In MS v SSWP [2024] UKUT 185 (AAC), the appellant managed his double incontinence in the back of his work van travelling between garages as a service support representative. The Upper Tribunal in that case concluded that the appellant should receive 8 points for activity 5 because he could not complete the tasks involved ‘within a reasonable time period’. This case not only emphasises the importance of a full account from the claimant of how they cope at work (the DWP’s representative, in supporting the appeal, mentioned ‘the extensive and detailed evidence provided by the claimant’) but also highlights that working people can still fit some of PIP’s highest-scoring descriptors.

Will starting work trigger a PIP reassessment?

At the time of writing, in theory at least the answer is yes. However, the DWP has no specific policy of treating work as a relevant change of circumstances. In future, there is likely to be explicit legal protection against being reassessed because of starting work. This is set out in the draft Universal Credit, Personal Independence Payment and Employment Support Allowance (Amendment) Regulations 2025. These were published in June and the government aims to bring them into force in 2026.4