Reasonable adjustments in online testing: a practical guide for employers

The duty is anticipatory, which means it applies before anyone asks. Most employers get the legal principle right and the operational detail wrong.

The duty is anticipatory

Under the Equality Act 2010, the duty to make reasonable adjustments does not begin when a candidate discloses a disability. It applies in advance — you are expected to have anticipated that disabled people will apply and to have arranged the process accordingly.

In practice that means the adjustment process exists before the campaign opens, is described where candidates will see it, and does not require someone to explain their condition in detail to a hiring manager in order to access it.

It also means the assessment platform has to support the adjustment. A policy promising extra time on a system that cannot deliver it is worse than no policy, because it creates an expectation you will fail to meet — and a candidate who was told they would receive an adjustment and did not has a stronger complaint than one who was never offered it.

What adjustments actually look like

Extra time is the most common and the most misunderstood. Typical allowances of 25% are conventional rather than evidence-based, and the right amount depends on the person and the test. What matters is that the allowance is applied consistently and actually reaches the candidate's session.

Other adjustments are often more useful and less discussed. Permitting assistive technology — screen readers, magnification, dictation — depends on the test not blocking it, and copy-protection measures designed to deter cheating frequently break screen readers as a side effect. Allowing breaks, offering an alternative format, or simply providing the instructions in advance can matter more than time.

Ask the candidate what they need. They know better than a policy document does.

When extra time is not the answer

This is the part most guidance skips. For a speeded test — where the construct is how much you complete under time pressure — extra time does not level the field. It changes what is being measured, and the resulting score cannot be compared to the norm group.

That is not a reason to refuse an adjustment. It is a reason to offer a different one: an alternative assessment measuring the same construct without the speed component, or removing that test from the process for that candidate.

"No adjustment is possible on this instrument" is an incomplete answer. "This instrument cannot be adjusted, so here is the alternative" is a defensible one. The difference is whether you decided in advance.

Getting the process right

Record the adjustment against the assessment, not in a side conversation, so it is applied automatically rather than remembered.

Separate the request from the hiring decision. The people deciding whether to make an adjustment should not be the people scoring the candidate, and hiring managers rarely need to know a request was made at all.

Check that the adjustment actually applied. A recorded allowance that silently fails to reach the candidate's session is the worst outcome available — the candidate believes they have been accommodated, the record says so, and the score says otherwise.

And treat the data carefully. A recorded adjustment implies a disability, which makes it special category data under UK GDPR whether or not a diagnosis is stored.