Accessibility in 2025: Past the Buzzword Stage

The Business Case You Can’t Afford to Ignore.

Once upon a time, “accessibility” in digital projects was a line item you added if there was budget left over, or something that hung around on the backlog gathering dust. That time has expired.

In 2025, accessibility is infrastructure. It is as fundamental to a digital service as HTTPS or mobile responsiveness. Not because it has suddenly become morally important (it always was), but because three forces have converged:

• The law has teeth. The European Accessibility Act came into force in June 2025, aligning with WCAG 2.1 AA and EN 301 549. In the UK, the Equality Act 2010 already makes inaccessible services a discrimination risk. Procurement clauses are quietly locking out non‑compliant suppliers before they even pitch.
• The market is massive. The “Purple Pound”, the spending power of households with disabled members, is worth £274 billion a year in the UK. One in four adults reports a disability. If your site does not work for them, you are excluding people and revenue.
• Competitors are still failing. Ninety‑eight percent of websites fail basic accessibility checks. That is not a niche opportunity; it is a wide‑open field for anyone willing to meet the standard.

This is not about “doing the right thing” in a vacuum. It is about risk mitigation, market expansion, and operational efficiency. Accessibility reduces support overhead, improves SEO, and future‑proofs your product against regulatory change.

If you are still treating it as a compliance chore or a branding exercise, you are missing the point and the opportunity. In 2025, accessibility is no longer a differentiator because it is “nice.” It is a differentiator because most people still have not caught up.

1. The Legal Floor Just Got Higher and It Is Rising Again

Since 28 June 2025, the European Accessibility Act (EAA) has required all new websites, apps, and digital services sold in the EU to meet EN 301 549. This is essentially WCAG 2.1 AA with a legal badge. UK‑based businesses selling into the EU are in scope. Domestically, the Equality Act 2010 already makes inaccessible services a potential discrimination claim (We Are Purple).

Examples:

• Checkout forms without keyboard navigation breach WCAG 2.1 SC 2.1.1 and are actionable barriers.
• Colour contrast below 4.5:1 on key text fails SC 1.4.3, trivial to fix in CSS but expensive to defend in court.
• Missing form labels break both accessibility and GDPR compliance if users cannot confirm what data they are submitting.

Insider note: NHS Digital’s supplier contracts already require WCAG 2.1 AA conformance. Fail, and you are out before the tender is even read.

2. The Purple Pound Is a Market, Not a Charity Case

Households with disabled members control £274 billion in annual UK spending (Anderson Strathern). That is roughly 13% of GDP. One in four UK adults reports a disability.

Examples:

• Travel booking engines without alt text on date pickers are invisible to screen reader users, losing bookings worth thousands.
• Fashion retailers hiding size guides in inaccessible PDFs see higher returns and lower repeat purchases.
• Banks relying solely on SMS for two‑factor authentication exclude hearing‑impaired customers and risk breaching FCA Consumer Duty.

Insider note: Scope’s research shows 75% of disabled customers have walked away from a business due to poor accessibility. That is measurable churn, not abstract goodwill.

3. Competitors Are Still Failing the Basics

98% of websites fail WCAG 2.1 checks (WebAIM Million 2025 Report). The same top five issues appear year after year: missing alt text, low contrast, empty links, missing form labels, and no language attribute.

Examples:

• “Read more” links with no context confuse screen readers and tank SEO anchor relevance.
• No skip link forces keyboard users to tab through 50+ menu items before reaching content.
• Auto‑advancing carousels without pause controls breach SC 2.2.2 and alienate users with cognitive or motor impairments.

Insider note: The assistive tech market is projected to hit $18.51 billion by 2030 (ReportPrime), but much of that spend is on workarounds for bad design. Make the core usable, and you bypass the workaround entirely.

4. Accessibility Is an SEO Multiplier

Accessible sites see up to 23% more organic traffic (accessiBe). The same practices that make a site usable for assistive tech also make it easier for search engines to parse.

Examples:

• Semantic headings, H1–H6 in logical order, help both screen readers and Google understand page hierarchy.
• Alt attributes on images double as keyword opportunities in image search.
• Descriptive link text “Download the 2025 Accessibility Checklist” rather than “Download Now” boosts anchor relevance and click‑through rates.

Insider note: Accessibility improvements often reduce bounce rates across the board, a quality signal Google rewards.

5. Building It In Is Cheaper Than Bolting It On

Most accessibility fixes are trivial if addressed during design and build. Retrofitting means re‑engineering templates, rewriting content, and QA‑testing twice.

Examples:

• Choosing a compliant colour palette upfront costs nothing extra. Re‑tinting an entire design system later is weeks of work.
• Writing descriptive link text as you go is free. Rewriting 500+ “click here” links later is a billable project.
• Adding ARIA roles during build takes minutes per component. Retrofitting them means unpicking production code.

Insider note: Inaccessible features are technical debt with legal interest. Every day you ship them, the compound cost grows in fixes, lost sales, and potential claims.

Bottom line: The law is already here, the market is huge, your competitors are asleep, Google will reward you, and it is cheaper to do it now.

That is not a moral stance. It is a commercial strategy.