Expect a long wait. Access to Work decisions averaged 66 days in 2024-25, rising to 109 days by late 2025, and applicants are now routinely told employed cases take around 37 weeks (longer if self-employed).
The official figure, and why it understates the wait
Access to Work is a grant run by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The department's own target is to decide an application within 25 working days, but it is not meeting it. The National Audit Office found the average processing time rose from 28 days in 2020-21 to 66 days in 2024-25, then reached 109 days in November 2025. The queue grew with it: applications awaiting a decision climbed from 21,700 in March 2022 to 62,100 in March 2025.
Even those averages flatter the picture. When applicants ring the Access to Work helpline in 2026, they are being quoted far longer windows than the published average, because a decision is only the start, the support then has to be agreed and put in place.
What you are likely to be quoted now
The wait depends mainly on whether the person is employed by an organisation or works for themselves:
- Employed by an organisation: roughly 37 weeks, according to what the helpline is currently telling callers.
- Self-employed or freelance: roughly 67 weeks, the longest of the two routes.
- Starting a job within 4 weeks: prioritised. Per Scope, an applicant whose start date is inside the next four weeks moves up the queue, so flag a confirmed start date when you apply.
These are quoted waits, not promises, and they move as the backlog shifts. You do not need a formal diagnosis to apply: eligibility rests on a health condition or disability that affects work, not on a diagnostic label. If you have not heard within a week of applying, call the helpline on 0800 121 7479 to confirm the application landed.
What an employer can do while it sits in the queue
Here is the point most results miss. Your duty to make reasonable adjustments for a disabled worker runs under the Equality Act 2010 (sections 20 and 21), and it does not wait for an Access to Work grant. The grant funds support that goes beyond those adjustments, so the changes the law already requires of you can, and should, begin now rather than stalling on DWP. Treating the wait as a reason to delay an adjustment you owe is itself a risk.
Where the law comes from
Related
This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.