In many organisations we work with, neurodiversity sits primarily within the inclusion or EDI remit, alongside policy documents and awareness campaigns. We think this framing, while well-intentioned, can understate how directly neurodiversity affects workforce capability, retention, and legal risk.
Here is why we believe it deserves a seat at the business table, not just the inclusion table.
What Is Neurodiversity, in Business Terms?
Neurodiversity refers to the natural variation in how human brains process information, learn, and experience the world. It includes conditions such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, and dyscalculia, alongside many people who think differently without a formal diagnosis at all.
Estimates suggest that approximately 15 to 20 per cent of the UK population is neurodivergent, according to research cited by HR academics writing in People Management. [1] Whatever the precise figure in any given organisation, this is not a consideration affecting a handful of employees in isolation. It is a workforce-wide reality.
Where the Evidence Points
We want to be careful here to distinguish what the evidence shows from what we, as practitioners, infer from it.
Manager confidence is a documented gap. A 2026 survey of workplace professionals by VinciWorks found that 35% of HR, L&D and compliance professionals say managers in their organisation lack confidence discussing reasonable adjustments for neurodivergent employees, with a lack of training and awareness cited as the leading barrier. [2] Separately, Aviva's Working Lives research found that while 64% of employers surveyed said they would feel confident supporting neurodivergent employees, a substantial minority did not. [3]
Many neurodivergent employees report feeling unsupported. Research cited by Breathe HR found that almost two thirds of neurodivergent respondents feel they are not well supported at work, with this lack of support linked to stress, anxiety, burnout and reduced confidence. [4] We would caution that self-reported survey data like this reflects perception rather than a clinical measure, but perception of support, or its absence, has real consequences for engagement and retention regardless.
Tribunal claims involving disability and neurodivergence are rising. According to the Ministry of Justice, disability discrimination accounted for 14.8% of all new employment tribunal cases in the third quarter of 2025, and referrals to Acas for disability discrimination rose by 41% between 2023/24 and 2024/25. [5] The VinciWorks survey referenced above also reported a 95% rise in tribunal claims related to neurodiversity workplace adjustments, though we have not been able to independently verify the underlying methodology behind that specific figure, so we would treat it as indicative rather than definitive. [2]
Compensation for disability discrimination in the UK is uncapped. This is a matter of law, not estimation. Unlike unfair dismissal, where compensation is subject to a statutory cap, there is no statutory maximum for discrimination awards. [6] Reported awards vary enormously. Average and median awards tend to be modest, often in the tens of thousands of pounds, but a small number of cases have resulted in awards running into hundreds of thousands or, in rare instances, over a million pounds. [7][8] We would not want to suggest that large awards are typical, only that the legal exposure has no fixed ceiling.
What We Believe This Means
The evidence above does not, on its own, prove that neurodiversity is "a business issue rather than an inclusion issue." That framing is our interpretation, based on what we have observed across nearly two decades of working with organisations on this subject. We think it is a reasonable interpretation, but it is ours, not an established research finding.
What the evidence does support, fairly directly, is this: a meaningful proportion of the workforce is neurodivergent, a meaningful proportion of managers lack confidence in this area, a meaningful proportion of neurodivergent employees feel unsupported as a result, and the legal exposure from getting this wrong has no upper limit.
Whether an organisation chooses to address that primarily through an inclusion lens, an HR risk lens, or a performance and retention lens is, in our view, less important than addressing it at all, and addressing it before a problem surfaces rather than after.
What This Suggests in Practice
Based on what we observe in our own client work, organisations that make progress in supporting neurodiversity, tend to prioritise line manager capability early, since this is consistently where research and our own experience point to the largest gap between intention and practice.
This typically means building manager confidence and a shared organisational understanding before a specific situation forces the issue, training that addresses how to have a sensitive conversation and what the Equality Act 2010 actually requires, and policies designed with neurodivergent employees in mind from the outset rather than adjusted retrospectively.
We describe this shift, in our own work, as moving from awareness to implementation. We believe awareness campaigns have value, but in our experience they tend not to change day-to-day practice unless followed by specific training, clear processes, and a way of identifying need that does not depend entirely on employees self-disclosing.
A Final Caveat
We have tried, throughout this piece, to separate what the research shows from what we believe it implies. We would encourage any organisation reading this to do the same when evaluating their own position, rather than assuming that the figures above apply uniformly to their own workforce, sector, or circumstances. The right starting point is usually an honest, organisation-specific assessment, not a generic statistic.
Lexxic is a psychologist-led neurodiversity consultancy, supporting organisations across the public and private sector to build neuroinclusive workplaces. Powered by Do-IT Profiler, a data intelligence platform used by individuals across employment, education, justice, and healthcare settings.
Talk to our team about what this looks like for your organisation
Sources
- Papafilippou, V., Downes, L., Nicolopoulou, K. and Fahmy, A. (2024). Line managers: the missing piece of the neurodiversity puzzle? People Management, 22 October 2024.
- VinciWorks (2026). Neurodiversity in the workplace: 35% of managers lack confidence on reasonable adjustments as tribunal claims surge. Survey of 495 workplace professionals.
- Aviva plc (2024). Working Lives research. Press release, September 2024.
- Breathe HR (2025). Supporting neurodivergent employees at work: A practical guide for line managers.
- Ministry of Justice, cited in: Disability Discrimination at Work: Your Rights Explained. Tribunal claim solicitors, February 2026.
- Working Families (2026). Calculating Damages/Compensation in the Employment Tribunal.
- Tribunal claim solicitors (2026). Disability Discrimination at Work: Your Rights Explained. Citing 2022/23 reporting period tribunal award data.
- Addleshaw Goddard (n.d.). Tribunal makes second largest disability discrimination award ever. Case commentary on Barrow v Kellogg Brown & Root (UK) Ltd.
We have made reasonable efforts to verify the figures and sources cited above at the time of writing. Employment law and reported case data may change. This article does not constitute legal advice. Organisations should seek independent legal counsel on specific situations.