The doors an inclusive sector still keeps shut

I have spent over 30 years designing and building for the web, and lately I have been reflecting on digital accessibility in the UK. The hope is that we catch up with countries that already treat it as a legal duty with some force behind it: the United States, Norway, Canada, Australia and India, and the European Union member states now covered by the European Accessibility Act, including Germany, France and Ireland. Yet, that catch-up is not guaranteed.

Nothing equivalent really exists for most services here. Public-sector sites and apps sit under the accessibility regulations. Beyond that, we are still relying on the Equality Act 2010. It matters, but it has very little bite. It does not set a clear technical standard, and in practice it depends on an individual being willing to bring a claim.

This article is about a problem I can already see if the industry in the UK is going to mature. 

The issue lies in the system itself. For an industry founded on removing barriers, digital accessibility in the UK has become surprisingly exclusive, fragmented, and difficult to navigate as an independent practitioner.

Gatekeeping in the job market

Historically, dedicated accessibility roles were confined to a handful of large institutions, most notably the BBC and central GOV.UK departments. It is encouraging to see that mid-sized and enterprise businesses are finally creating internal accessibility positions, but they are still scarce. Alongside that, it appears a rigid hiring pattern has emerged.

Employers rely heavily on specific pedigree markers. If your CV does not list prior work for central government or a major public broadcaster, there is a chance your application will struggle to gain traction. The same markers show up before you even get to a job application. Potential clients ask for an IAAP credential, or for a history with a recognised name in the field, such as the Government Digital Service. Without one or the other, the conversation can stall before the work is discussed.

Then comes the requirement that appears to have become standard across job descriptions: IAAP qualifications.

The International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP) serves an important role in advocating for digital inclusion globally, and having a unifying body is a positive step for the discipline. The certification framework, though, has become an expensive filter.

To hold the CPACC (Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies) and WAS (Web Accessibility Specialist) credentials, and thereby earn the overarching CPWA (Certified Professional in Web Accessibility) status, requires an investment of well over £1,000 once exam fees, study resources, and ongoing renewals are factored in. Maintaining your status also demands 45 Continuing Accessibility Education Credits every three years. As far as I am aware, IAAP offers no alternative pathways, such as portfolio submissions, case studies, or peer reviews, to demonstrate mastery. Everyone must sit the same multiple-choice exam.

For a practitioner with three decades of hands-on experience across code, design, typography, and user behaviour, this is a poor fit. I do not pretend to know everything, and I am always keen to learn. I might well pick up something new if I sat the exam. What I cannot accept is that the only recognised proof of that learning is a paid multiple-choice paper. It measures exam preparation more than the work, and it costs enough that plenty of capable people will never sit it.

I am not trying to goad IAAP. This is simply an observation. There is an oddity in needing a costly exam before you can be accredited in a field whose purpose is removing barriers. And without that stamp of approval, it seems harder to get a job in digital accessibility at all.

It also creates a dependency loop. Digital accessibility is still not a well-known discipline here in the UK, so when HR teams write a job description they reach for what is standard in most sectors: a named accreditation. IAAP is, as far as I can see, the only stamp they can put on the page. Yet that stamp is a barrier for many people who might work in the field. Accessibility work is relatively scarce in the UK, the exams and renewals are costly, and because the UK is not treated as an emerging economy, no discount is offered. The credentials employers ask for is the one a lot of practitioners cannot readily afford.

There is a further oddity in using a formal, timed exam as the only gateway. Digital accessibility standards exist to protect people with physical, cognitive, and neurodivergent conditions. Timed, high-stress examinations are widely recognised as environments that put neurodivergent candidates at a disadvantage. For a sector dedicated to inclusion, that is a strange way to decide who is allowed in.

How a professional sees the world differently

My own skill sits somewhere else. I do not pretend I can memorise every WCAG success criterion. What I have is decades of practice, a habit of empathy, and what I call projected insight. I often put it like this: I don’t just see the big picture, but the entire panorama. I look at the whole journey and mentally walk it as the person who has to complete it, including the barriers a checklist will not name.

Recently, in an initial client contact meeting, I was shown a sequence of screens for an app heading into production. Each screen was a stage in the user journey, where eventually the user had to take close-up and distance photos of themselves. When I asked about testing, the team said they were looking for a WCAG 2.2 AA audit, plus manual testing with VoiceOver and TalkBack.

I asked a simple question: if someone relies on VoiceOver or TalkBack, that usually means they are visually impaired. How are they supposed to position themselves and take accurate photos at set distances? You could see that thought take root and then the sudden realisation it was not considered in their hurry to develop the Minimal Viable Product (MVP).

There was a second problem. The starting screen did not tell the user what the journey would ask of them: which documents, which actions, and how long it would take. In a journey of several steps, people need that before they begin. If someone is three steps in before they discover they cannot finish, the frustration is immediate, and so is the damage to trust.

None of that came from recalling a success criterion or from a multiple-choice exam. It came from treating the journey as something a particular person has to get through. That is the part automated scans and a paid exam are not built to see.

The question about the photos did not come from a success criterion. A career of noticing what the checklist misses is what the job adverts and the frameworks leave out.

The public sector procurement trap

These same two filters follow you out of the job market too. A recognised name, or an IAAP qualification, is already a high bar for employment in a sector that is still emerging. The qualification is a large outlay, more than most people can justify when the work itself is scarce. Freelance work does not remove the bar. The clients with a budget are usually in the public sector or in large companies, and they ask for the same two things before a conversation starts.

Most digital accessibility specialists are individuals, not companies. Frameworks such as G-Cloud are built for suppliers that can bid as organisations. For a sole practitioner that route is close to impossible, and a listing would still sit alongside the name and the qualification those buyers expect. Long experience is what gets left off the form.

The public sector accounts for the majority of accessibility work in the UK, largely driven by the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations (PSBAR). For independent specialists, accessing this work directly is an uphill battle.

To supply services to public bodies, you typically need to be listed on government procurement channels such as the G-Cloud framework. The structure of G-Cloud presents substantial hurdles for independent freelancers, small businesses and sole traders:

• Infrequent application windows: Submissions for major frameworks open only during specific, widely spaced iteration cycles. If you miss a window, you are locked out of direct marketplace access until the next iteration opens.
• Administrative overhead: While lighter than traditional tenders, framework applications demand compliance hurdles, from insurance minimums to legal declarations, that weigh more heavily on a sole trader than on a corporate bidding team.
• A charge on work won: Getting onto the framework is not the only cost. Under G-Cloud 14, a supplier pays a management charge on what they invoice to the buyer. It is currently 0.75% of those charges, excluding VAT, and the agreement allows it to rise to 1%.
• Agency intermediaries: Prime contractors secure public sector framework lots and take a significant markup on the contract, frequently sub-contracting the specialist accessibility work to independent practitioners at lower day rates.

Many agencies listed on procurement frameworks win WCAG auditing contracts without dedicated in-house accessibility specialists, and sometimes without accessible websites of their own. They secure the contract on corporate scale, then sub-contract the work to the independent experts who were structurally blocked from bidding in the first place. That is how the framework is built. It is a hard outcome to sit with when the work itself is about opening access.

I could sit the exam. With the qualification I would still not have a government or broadcaster name on my CV, or the kind of company a framework is written for. Jobs and contracts ask for the same missing stamps, and a sole practitioner cannot cheaply acquire either of them. That loop is the problem I see as the sector grows. The people with long careers of practical work are the ones it pushes out.

Room for a different way of looking

Getting a foothold as a sole practitioner is hard. It is harder when the industry treats one qualification as the proof that someone belongs. IAAP does useful work. The strain comes from treating it as the single source of truth for who is fit to practise.

That can stifle people like me. If I apply for a role, the qualification is on the description. If I approach a client, it is on their list too. Working alone, one project at a time, is not treated as another route. We need to find value in people who think differently. People who see the entire panorama, not only the success criterion in front of them. The question about the photos came from that kind of perception. If the UK industry is going to mature, that perception has to count.