What the end of the National Autism Strategy can tell us…
July 2026
This month, the government’s national strategy for autistic children, young people and adults — published in July 2021 and intended to run for five years — reaches its end.
It was, on paper, an ambitious document. It committed to improving understanding and acceptance of autism across society, tackling health inequalities, driving down assessment waiting times, and — directly relevant to the people Reinforce Potential works with every day — supporting more autistic people into employment.
Five years on, it is worth asking plainly: what was delivered?
What the strategy promised on employment
The 2021–2026 strategy set out a clear vision for employment. By 2026, the government would have improved employer awareness of autism, made employment programmes more accessible, and worked to close the employment gap between autistic and non-disabled people.
The gap it was trying to close was stark. At the time of publication, around three in ten autistic people were in employment, compared with more than eight in ten non-disabled people. The strategy acknowledged this as a systemic failure — and committed to addressing it.
The House of Lords special inquiry committee, which reviewed the strategy’s impact in November 2025, found that after the first year, there was no funded plan to deliver it. The ambitions were set. The implementation, for the most part, was not. Autism charities described the government’s response to the committee’s findings as “unacceptable.” The employment gap, as of 2026, remains almost exactly where it was in 2021.
A new strategy has been promised. At the time of writing, it has not arrived.
What employers are doing in the meantime
The absence of effective government action might matter less if employers were filling the gap. The evidence suggests they are not.
Earlier this year, Acas published the findings of a major survey on neurodiversity in the workplace — one of the most comprehensive examinations of employer practice in this area carried out in the UK. The findings were troubling.
Fewer than half of UK employers believe they are effective at training managers to identify and make reasonable adjustments for neurodivergent employees. Around a third of autistic employees report feeling unable to discuss their adjustment needs at all. Of those who do make requests, many describe a process that is slow, inconsistent, or ultimately unsuccessful.
These are not small failings at the margins. Reasonable adjustments for neurodivergent employees are a legal requirement under the Equality Act. The right to request them is not a discretionary benefit — it is something employees are entitled to. The Acas findings suggest that for a significant proportion of neurodivergent people, those entitlements exist on paper and not much else.
The pattern: awareness without action
What makes the Acas findings particularly significant is that they sit alongside a separate, equally sobering piece of research.
The City & Guilds Foundation’s 2026 Neurodiversity Index — published earlier this month — found that employer awareness of neurodiversity is rising. Organisations are talking about neurodiversity more. Policies are being written. Training is being commissioned, at least in some places.
But the lived experience of neurodivergent employees is getting worse. People are reporting less support, longer waits for adjustments, lower feelings of psychological safety, and more exposure to microaggressions than in previous years.
More awareness. Worse outcomes.
This pattern — awareness rising, experience deteriorating — is one of the most important things to understand about neurodiversity in the UK workplace in 2026. It suggests that the current dominant approach to neurodiversity inclusion — led by awareness campaigns, e-learning modules, and policy statements — is not translating into the practical, day-to-day changes that neurodivergent professionals actually need.
The gap between what organisations say about neurodiversity and what neurodivergent employees experience inside them is, by the available evidence, widening.
What the independent review might change
There is, at least, something further on the horizon.
The government commissioned an independent review of ADHD, autism, and mental health services — led by the Department of Health and Social Care — whose findings are expected this summer. Its interim report has already been published, and the full recommendations have the potential to reshape NHS diagnostic pathways, service commissioning, and the support available to neurodivergent people across England.
We will read those recommendations carefully when they arrive. There are things we would like to see: a serious commitment to reducing the waiting times that currently leave neurodivergent people waiting years for a diagnosis that should inform their working life; investment in post-diagnostic support that doesn’t disappear after the assessment appointment; and employment-focused recommendations that go beyond employer awareness and address the practical, individual needs of neurodivergent professionals in work.
We would also like to see the new autism strategy — when it arrives — learn from the failure of its predecessor. Ambitions without funded implementation plans are not strategies. They are intentions. And intentions do not help a neurodivergent professional manage an inbox that’s been causing anxiety for three weeks, or break through the executive function block that’s standing between them and an important piece of work.
What doesn’t wait for reviews
Here is what we have learned, working with neurodivergent professionals every day: the support that makes the most difference is specific, practical, and immediate.
It isn’t a policy statement. It isn’t an e-learning module completed by a line manager who has fifteen other things to do. It isn’t the outcome of a government review that will take months to implement even if it says all the right things.
It is a skilled, well-matched support worker who understands how a specific person’s neurodivergence affects their specific working day — and who addresses the friction that results, consistently and reliably, week after week.
For some of our clients, that means managing the administrative burden that consumes disproportionate executive function. For others, it’s the external structure and accountability that allows them to start the tasks that would otherwise stall. For others, it’s handling the correspondence that triggers anxiety, or keeping deadlines visible before they become crises.
The common thread is this: the support is matched to the individual, not to a generic idea of what a neurodivergent professional needs. And it works — not in the abstract, but in the actual working week of the person receiving it.
What we think needs to be said
We are not cynical about government strategies or employer initiatives. Systemic change matters, and the direction of travel — more awareness, more policy attention, more legal protection — is broadly right.
But five years of a strategy that wasn’t delivered. Employer survey findings that show legal obligations routinely unmet. A pattern of awareness rising as experience worsens. These are not small disappointments. They represent a sustained failure to translate good intentions into practical improvement for the neurodivergent professionals who need it.
Those professionals are not abstractions. They are the people who come to us — often after years of managing alone, often having tried the formal routes and found them inadequate, often having absorbed far more than anyone should be expected to absorb before reaching out.
They deserve better from the systems that are supposed to support them. And while those systems catch up, they deserve support that actually works, right now, for them specifically.
That is what Reinforce Potential offers. It is not a replacement for the change that should be coming. It is what happens in the meantime — and what continues to matter long after the next strategy is published.
If you’re a neurodivergent professional navigating a workplace that isn’t adequately supporting you — employed or self-employed, recently diagnosed or long-aware — we’d like to talk.
👉 Book a conversation with our team
🌐 reinforcepotential.co.uk | 📞 01843 835 551
