There are around 16 million disabled people in the UK. If your website is not built to work for all of them, you are turning away a large chunk of potential customers. And you may be on the wrong side of the law. Here is what website accessibility means in practice, why it matters to your business, and what you can do about it.
What Is Website Accessibility?
Website accessibility means building and maintaining your site so that everyone can use it, regardless of any disability or impairment. That covers people who are blind or have low vision, people who are deaf or hard of hearing, people with motor difficulties who cannot use a mouse, and people with cognitive conditions such as dyslexia.
A person who is visually impaired might use a screen reader to listen to your website. Someone with limited hand movement might rely entirely on a keyboard to navigate. A person who struggles to read small text needs a site that lets them zoom in without the layout breaking. These are not edge cases. They are real customers trying to do business with you.
The international standard for accessible websites is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, known as WCAG. The current version, WCAG 2.2, sets out four core principles. Your website must be perceivable, operable, understandable, and reliable. Level AA is the benchmark most UK businesses should aim for.
What Does UK Law Say About Website Accessibility?
The Equality Act 2010 covers businesses of all sizes. It requires you to make reasonable adjustments so that disabled people can access your goods and services on equal terms. That duty extends to your website. If someone cannot use your site because it has not been built with accessibility in mind, you could face a discrimination complaint.
Public sector organisations face stricter rules. They must meet WCAG 2.2 AA under the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018. For private businesses, the Equality Act still applies, even if the requirements are less prescriptive.
The European Accessibility Act became enforceable in June 2025. If your business sells products or services to customers in the EU, this law applies to you. Non-compliance can carry financial penalties of up to €3 million.
Accessibility is not just the right thing to do. For most UK businesses, it is a legal obligation.
The Business Case You Cannot Ignore
Around 16 million people in the UK have a disability. The combined spending power of UK households with at least one disabled person, often called the purple pound, is estimated at £274 billion per year. Online spending from those households adds up to roughly £25 billion annually. That is a market no business can afford to overlook.
Research into what is known as the Click-Away Pound, a study of online behaviour among disabled people in the UK, found that businesses lose billions each year because disabled users give up on websites they find too difficult to use. Nearly 70% of disabled consumers say they will leave a site that is hard to navigate. Around 83% limit their online shopping to websites they already know work well for them.
There is an SEO benefit worth noting too. Many accessibility improvements, including descriptive image alt text, clear heading structures, and well-organised page layouts, are the same things search engines reward. Getting your site right for disabled users often improves your search visibility at the same time.
The Most Common Accessibility Problems on UK Business Websites
According to the WebAIM Million 2026 report, which tested accessibility across one million home pages, 95.9% had detectable WCAG 2 failures. That means the vast majority of business websites, possibly including yours, have accessibility problems you may not yet be aware of.
The most widespread issue is low contrast text, found on 83.9% of pages tested. When the colour of your text is too close to the background colour, it becomes hard to read for people with low vision or colour blindness. WCAG requires a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for standard body text.
Missing image alt text was detected on 53.1% of home pages. Alt text is the description a screen reader announces when it reaches an image. Without it, blind users have no idea what the image contains or why it is there.
Missing form labels are a problem on more than half of all pages tested. If a contact form or enquiry field is not properly labelled, screen reader users may not know what information is expected of them.
Keyboard navigation barriers, empty links, and inaccessible PDF documents round out the most common failures. The good news is that most of these issues are fixable without rebuilding your site. If your site runs on WordPress, our WordPress maintenance service includes technical audits and fixes that can address many of these issues as part of regular site management.
How to Check Whether Your Website Is Accessible
You do not need to spend money to get a basic read on your site’s current state. Several free tools can give you an immediate overview of the most common problems.
WAVE by WebAIM (wave.webaim.org) is one of the most widely used tools. Enter your URL and it flags accessibility issues directly on your page, marking exactly where each problem sits and what type of error it represents. It is a good starting point for any business owner who wants a quick picture before deciding what to do next.
Google Lighthouse, built into Chrome’s developer tools, includes an accessibility audit as standard. It scores your page out of 100 and lists specific issues to address. You can run it without installing anything extra.
Neither tool gives the full picture. Automated checks typically catch around 30 to 40% of real accessibility problems. The rest require a developer to test the site manually, using a keyboard and screen reader, applying their knowledge of WCAG criteria to what they find.
Our web development team can carry out a thorough accessibility review and work through the fixes in priority order, starting with the issues that affect the most users.
Why Accessibility Should Be Built Into Your Web Design From the Start
Adding accessibility to an existing website is nearly always more costly and time-consuming than building it in from the beginning. A site that was never designed with accessibility in mind often has structural issues deep in its code. Fixing them properly can mean changes to templates, stylesheets, and page builders across the entire site.
If you are planning a new website or a redesign, now is the right time to make accessibility a requirement before any design work begins. Brief your web designer on WCAG 2.2 AA compliance at the outset. Ask about colour contrast ratios, heading structure, keyboard navigation, and form labelling. These should never be afterthoughts.
Designers who think about the range of users from the outset tend to produce websites that work better for everyone, not just people with disabilities. Older users, people on slower mobile connections, and anyone accessing your site in difficult conditions all benefit from a well-structured, clearly labelled, easy-to-navigate website.
Keeping your site accessible is not a one-time job. Websites change constantly as new content, images, and functionality are added. Periodic accessibility checks should be part of regular website maintenance, so that new additions do not introduce problems that were not there before.
Accessibility built in from the start is not an added cost. It is good design practice that pays off in a wider audience, better search performance, and a lower risk of legal problems.
Frequently Asked Questions About Website Accessibility
Does UK law require my business website to be accessible?
Yes, in most cases. The Equality Act 2010 requires all businesses to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people, and that duty covers your website. If a disabled person cannot access your services through your site, you may face a discrimination claim. Public sector organisations face stricter requirements under the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018. If you sell to EU customers, the European Accessibility Act, enforceable since June 2025, may also apply.
What is WCAG and which level do I need?
WCAG stands for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. It is the international standard for accessible web content, produced by the World Wide Web Consortium. There are three compliance levels: A, AA, and AAA. Most UK businesses should target WCAG 2.2 Level AA. That is the level recognised in UK government guidance and the level required for public sector websites.
How do I know if my website has accessibility issues?
Start with a free tool such as WAVE (wave.webaim.org) or Google Lighthouse. Both flag common problems like low contrast text, missing alt text, and unlabelled form fields. For a complete picture, a developer needs to test the site manually. Automated tools catch only a portion of real accessibility failures, so a manual audit is needed for anything beyond a basic check.
Will making my site accessible change how it looks?
Not noticeably, if it is done well. Most accessibility work is about structure and code rather than visual design. Better colour contrast makes text easier to read for all users, not just those with visual impairments. A good web designer can build accessibility into your site without changing its appearance or branding.
Is making a website accessible expensive?
It depends on where your site currently stands. Building accessibility in from the start of a new project adds very little to the overall cost. Fixing an existing site varies depending on how many issues exist and how deeply they are embedded in the code. A basic review and a prioritised list of fixes is a practical, affordable starting point for most businesses.
What is the purple pound?
The purple pound is the term for the collective spending power of disabled people and households with at least one disabled person in the UK. It is estimated to be worth around £274 billion per year. Businesses that make their websites and services accessible can reach this market directly, while competitors who do not build accessibly cannot.
Your website should be open to everyone. Millions of disabled people in the UK represent billions in combined spending power, and the businesses that make it easy for them to connect, browse, and buy will have an advantage that is hard to replicate. Whether you are planning a new site or want to improve an existing one, an accessibility review is a practical first step.