One in five people in the United Kingdom lives with a disability. That's around 14 million people. A significant proportion of them will visit your website this week — and if you haven't thought about accessibility, you may be making that experience unnecessarily difficult or completely impossible.

Accessibility is not a niche concern. It's not a box to tick for government contracts. It's good design, it's good business, and in 2025 the legal landscape around it is getting sharper.

The Legal Picture in the UK

The Equality Act 2010 requires businesses to make "reasonable adjustments" to prevent disabled people from being put at a substantial disadvantage. This applies to websites.

The question of what constitutes "reasonable" has historically been vague, but case law and regulatory guidance are filling in the blanks. The Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 already require public sector websites to meet WCAG 2.1 AA — and enforcement actions have followed non-compliance.

For private sector organisations, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) represent the established standard. WCAG 2.2, published in October 2023, is now the current version. Businesses that can demonstrate compliance have a strong position if challenged; those that can't are exposed.

The EU's European Accessibility Act, which comes into force in June 2025, requires many digital products and services sold in EU markets to meet accessibility standards. For UK businesses trading with Europe, this matters.

What WCAG Actually Requires

WCAG is built around four principles — content must be:

These four principles break down into specific success criteria across three conformance levels:

• A — minimum, must-have
• AA — standard — what "accessibility compliance" means in practice
• AAA — enhanced, aspirational for most sites

The 10 Most Common Failures

In audits of small business websites, the same failures appear repeatedly:

1. Missing image alt text

Every element needs an alt attribute. If the image is decorative, use alt="". If it conveys information, describe it accurately.

<!-- Wrong -->
<img src="team-photo.jpg">

<!-- Right -->
<img src="team-photo.jpg" alt="The LocalWebsCoder team at our Lincolnshire office">

<!-- Decorative image -->
<img src="decorative-divider.svg" alt="">

2. Insufficient colour contrast

Text must have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against its background (or 3:1 for large text). Many designer colour combinations that look beautiful fail this requirement.

Use the WebAIM Contrast Checker before finalising any colour palette.

3. Non-keyboard-navigable interfaces

Every interactive element — links, buttons, form fields, dropdown menus, modal dialogs — must be reachable and operable with a keyboard alone. Tab order should be logical and visible focus indicators must be present.

/* Never do this */
:focus { outline: none; }

/* Do this instead */
:focus-visible {
  outline: 2px solid var(--blue);
  outline-offset: 3px;
}

4. Missing form labels

Every form input needs an associated . Placeholder text alone is not a substitute.

<!-- Wrong -->
<input type="text" placeholder="Your name">

<!-- Right -->
<label for="name">Your name</label>
<input type="text" id="name" name="name" placeholder="Jane Smith">

5. Poor heading structure

Headings (

through

) create a navigable outline for screen reader users. Don't skip levels. Don't use headings purely for visual styling — use CSS for that.

6. Missing skip navigation

A "skip to main content" link at the top of the page allows keyboard and screen reader users to bypass repeated navigation on every page. It should be the first focusable element.

<a href="#main-content" class="lw-sr-only" style="...">Skip to main content</a>

7. Videos without captions

Any video with audio content needs captions. Auto-generated captions from YouTube or Vimeo are a start but often need correction for accuracy.

8. Mouse-only interactions

Hover-triggered menus that can't be opened with a keyboard, drag-and-drop interfaces with no keyboard alternative, custom JavaScript widgets that don't handle keyboard events — all of these exclude users who can't use a mouse.

9. Insufficient error messages

Form validation errors must be descriptive, positioned near the relevant field, and not rely on colour alone to convey the error state.

10. PDF documents without accessibility

PDFs need text content (not scanned images), a logical reading order, and tagged structure to be accessible. If you publish information as PDFs, audit them separately.

The Business Case Beyond Compliance

The argument for accessibility isn't just legal risk avoidance. Accessible websites are better websites for everyone:

Getting Started

You don't have to achieve perfect WCAG 2.2 AA compliance overnight. Start here:

1. Run an automated audit — WAVE or axe DevTools catch the most obvious failures automatically
2. Fix the critical failures first — missing alt text, contrast failures, and unlabelled form fields
3. Tab through your own site — spend 10 minutes navigating your website with only the Tab key. If you can't complete your key user journeys, neither can keyboard users.
4. Check your colour contrast — apply the checker to every text colour combination you use
5. Commission an accessibility audit — for sites where compliance matters professionally, a proper audit with manual testing is worth commissioning

Accessibility is not a project you finish. It's a practice you maintain. But you have to start.

Get in touch if you'd like us to audit your existing site or build your next site with accessibility first.