UK Digital Right to Work Checks: What's Changing in October 2026

Key Takeaways:

1. Updated digital Right to Work requirements take effect on October 1, 2026, making now the time to assess whether existing verification and onboarding processes are ready.
2. Build on a trusted foundation: The UK Digital Verification Services Trust Framework establishes government rules for certified digital verification services, helping to bring greater trust and consistency to eligible digital checks.
3. Turn compliance change into scalable onboarding: As workforces expand across employees, contractors, gig workers, and other worker types, integrated digital verification can reduce fragmented manual processes and support efficient onboarding.

In the UK, the digital verification services trust framework (UK DVSTF) sets government rules for certified digital verification services, including how identity and attribute checks should be performed in eligible use cases. Right to Work checks are the checks employers must carry out before employment to confirm that a person is allowed to work in the UK. As the government updates its Right to Work guidance and related digital-checking rules, employers and workforce platforms should understand the requirements neutrally and consult official guidance when assessing their obligations.

The UK's Right to Work landscape is evolving.

At the same time, the UK government has updated the rules that govern digital Right to Work checks. In September 2026, the Office for Digital Identities and Attributes (OfDIA) published Version 1.1 of the Supplementary Code for Digital Right to Work checks, aligning requirements for certified digital verification service providers such as Entrust with the regulatory changes taking effect on October 1, 2026. Among other updates, the new version expands the evidence and verification routes available through certified digital checks. To better understand the regulatory detail, see OfDIA's update on Version 1.1 of the Supplementary Code for Digital Right to Work Checks and this UK Government blog. As organizations prepare for those changes, many are taking a closer look at how they onboard and verify workers across increasingly diverse workforce models. Traditional employees now sit alongside contractors, subcontractors, gig workers, and platform-based workers, often within the same operating environment.

While discussions around Right to Work often focus on compliance, many organizations are facing a broader operational question: Can our current onboarding processes scale to support the workforce models of the future?

Organizations increasingly manage a mix of employees, contractors, freelancers, and platform-based workers, creating new onboarding and verification challenges. As workforce models become more diverse, manual reviews, fragmented systems, and inconsistent user experiences can create operational bottlenecks, making it harder for organizations to adapt and scale efficiently.

The Challenge Is Scale

Most organizations understand the importance of verifying workers. The difficulty comes when those checks must be performed:

• At higher volumes
• Across multiple worker categories
• Remotely
• Within tight onboarding timelines

As requirements evolve, employers and workforce platforms are looking for onboarding processes that can scale without creating additional friction for workers or operational teams.

Where Identity Verification Fits

Identity verification plays an important role within many Right to Work journeys, but it is important to understand where that role begins and ends.

Digital identity verification helps establish that an individual is who they claim to be. It does not replace the wider Right to Work process.

In practice:

• Identity verification providers verify identity.
• Right to Work providers manage broader workflow requirements.
• Employers retain responsibility for employment decisions.

Organizations that understand these boundaries are better positioned to build scalable and trustworthy onboarding experiences.

Partner Spotlight: Amiqus – Turning Identity Verification into a Complete Right to Work Experience

Right to Work obligations are becoming more complex, and organizations are looking beyond identity verification on its own. The real challenge is embedding that verification into a broader onboarding and compliance process, one that scales across different worker types and business models.

This is where partnerships between workforce platforms and identity verification providers make a difference.

Amiqus provides end-to-end Right to Work and DBS workflows for employers, recruiters, and workforce platforms. Amiqus is certified as a Digital Verification Service provider under the UK Government's Trust Framework, and combines compliance workflows, operational processes, and user experience into one solution. Entrust supplies the underlying identity verification technology that powers key steps in those journeys.

Together, the two organizations help customers move away from fragmented, manual processes toward a streamlined digital approach. Employers can build document verification, biometric verification, and identity assurance into their onboarding workflows, giving candidates a smoother experience while helping operational teams manage verification at scale.

As workforce models keep evolving, this partnership reflects a wider shift: Organizations want complete onboarding experiences, backed by trusted identity verification, rather than disconnected point solutions.

How Entrust Supports Right to Work Workflows

Identity verification is only one part of the Right to Work process, but it is a foundational one.

Entrust helps workforce platforms, onboarding providers, and compliance partners embed certified digital identity verification into broader Right to Work journeys. Through pre-built Studio workflows, Entrust combines document verification, biometric verification, workflow controls, and fraud-prevention capabilities into a structured verification experience.

This allows partners to incorporate trusted identity verification into their own onboarding and compliance solutions, while retaining ownership of the wider Right to Work process and final eligibility decisions.

Whether organizations are onboarding employees, contractors, or other worker types, the goal is the same: reduce reliance on fragmented manual checks, improve operational efficiency, and create onboarding experiences that can scale as workforce models continue to evolve.

Looking Beyond October

The October 2026 changes are important, but they are also part of a broader shift.

Workforces are becoming more distributed, more flexible, and more digitally connected. As a result, organizations are increasingly rethinking how they onboard, verify, and manage workers throughout the employment lifecycle.

The future of digital identity is taking shape today. Through the GOV.UK Wallet, individuals will be able to hold trusted digital credentials and reuse them seamlessly across a range of services and transactions. Certified providers such as Entrust will play a key role in enabling this ecosystem by providing the trusted means through which credentials can be accessed and verified.

This has the potential to transform workforce onboarding, enabling employers and platforms to verify individuals more quickly, securely, and efficiently while reducing administrative burden and improving the user experience.

To learn more about the Entrust offering around the UK Trust Framework and digital identity verification, visit our UK Trust Framework resource page.