Website Accessibility: Questions Answered
Whether WCAG is a legal requirement in the UK, the risk of legal action over an inaccessible website, what an accessibility audit costs, and how to label forms correctly.
Each answer below gives the short version first. Open the full article for the steps, the reasons and the official sources.
5 questions on Website Accessibility
| Question | Short answer |
|---|---|
| Form Labels: Why aria-label Counts for Accessibility | Every form input needs an accessible name so screen readers can announce it. Visible form labels are not the only option: a label for attribute, a wrapping label, aria-label, aria-labelledby or a title attribute all count. Placeholder text does not count as a label. |
| How Much Does an Accessibility Audit Cost in the UK? | An accessibility audit in the UK costs from free or a few pounds per page for an automated check (our WCAG 2.2 audit is £2.49) to roughly £350 to £900 for an informal manual review and about £1,500 to £5,000 or more for a full manual WCAG 2.2 AA audit, based on UK providers' published prices in October 2026. The price depends mainly on how much is tested by hand, how much of the site is covered and what the report includes. |
| How Much Does a WCAG Audit Cost? | A WCAG audit costs from free for an automated WCAG 2.2 check of a page (ours is £2.49) to roughly £1,500 to £5,000 or more for a manual WCAG 2.2 AA audit of a typical UK website. Make sure it tests WCAG 2.2, the current version, at Level AA, covers all 55 Level A and AA criteria, includes the pages people actually use, and reports which criteria could not be tested. |
| Is WCAG a Legal Requirement in the UK? | For public sector bodies, yes: the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 require websites and apps to meet WCAG 2.2 Level AA and publish an accessibility statement. For businesses, no UK law names WCAG, but the Equality Act 2010 requires service providers, including through websites, to make reasonable adjustments so disabled people are not put at a substantial disadvantage, and WCAG Level AA is the standard used to judge that. UK businesses selling to EU consumers may also fall under the European Accessibility Act. |
| Can You Be Sued in the UK for Your Website Not Being Accessible? | Yes. A disabled person put at a substantial disadvantage by an inaccessible website can bring a claim under the Equality Act 2010 in the county court in England and Wales, or the sheriff court in Scotland, normally within six months. The court can award damages, including compensation for injury to feelings, or order an injunction or declaration. RNIB took legal action against bmibaby over its website in 2012, and the case was settled after the airline made changes. |
Audit tools checked for false positives
We run other companies' audit tools on our own site and check every finding against the page code and the published rule. Read the false positives reviews.