Key IOSH event to focus on gig workers

IOSH is to host a Westminster discussion on the rights and conditions of gig economy workers, next week. Staged by our Policy and Public Affairs team, the event will focus on ‘Protecting gig workers in the age of AI’. IOSH has invited MPs and stakeholders, including the media, to gather in the Houses of Parliament on Wednesday 07 May 2025.

Antonia Bance MP, a member of the Commons Business and Trade Committee, will chair a 12-strong panel including four MPs. The panel will consider how to ensure gig and platform workers are treated fairly according to decent work principles and standards. Before taking questions from the floor, the panel will also assess the risks of algorithmic management in gig work. They will look at how to guarantee transparency, fairness and worker autonomy in decision-making processes.

“The UK’s gig economy is widely seen as being a double-edged sword,” says IOSH Senior Policy and Public Affairs Manager Ceri Finnegan.

“While gig work offers workers flexibility and new income streams, it also exposes them to insecurity and exploitation,” she adds.

The recently published IOSH report, A platform for success, estimated that 1.7 million people currently work in the UK gig economy. Of these gig workers, 20 per cent class this work as their main source of income. There is expected to be a 300 percent growth in the number of gig workers by 2027.

Yet an IOSH-commissioned survey of 1,000 platform workers by Opinium showed that:

58 per cent of those working for an online platform said they had to live with an unpredictable level of income
58 per cent also said that gig work makes it difficult to care for dependents (including children and elderly relatives)
63 per cent said it impacts their ability to take holidays
54 per cent highlighted low levels of job security.

“Added to the uncertainty that comes with insecure jobs and a lack of basic rights such as sick pay, pensions, collective bargaining or health and safety protections, algorithmic management means that gig workers are rated, assigned jobs or even fired by an AI-driven platform,” says Ceri.

The Westminster event will explore the potential for future government intervention through different policies and measures. The aim is to ensure some degree of protection for gig workers, while facilitating innovation and flexibility in the UK labour market.

“Without stronger regulations, the promise of flexibility risks becoming a trapdoor to instability – our challenge is to strike a fair balance that protects workers without stifling enterprise in this ever-evolving sector”

Ceri Finnegan

Job role: Senior Policy and Public Affairs Manager; •
Company: IOSH

Panel members

Andrew Chamberlain – IPSE, the Self-Employment Association
Tim Sharp – Senior Employment Rights Officer, Trades Union Congress (TUC)
Ruth Wilkinson – Head of Policy and Public Affairs, Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH)
Ben Willmott – Head of Public Policy, The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD)
Professor Phoebe Moore – Professor of Management and the Futures of Work, School of Business, University of Essex and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for the Future of Work
James Farrar – Founder and Director of Worker Info Exchange (WIE)
Dr Alex J Wood – Assistant Professor in Economic Sociology, University of Cambridge
Dr Aaron Cheng – Assistant Professor of Information Systems Department of Management, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)