May 2025
PIP is paid to address the additional costs of disabled people and people with long-term health conditions. It is not means-tested and does not rely on your national insurance record.
PIP is for people in work and not in work. There is nothing in the assessment criteria which means you cannot work while claiming PIP. However, some members find that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) use their work as evidence they do not qualify for PIP. This guide helps you to stop work getting in the way of PIP entitlement.
DWP decisions about PIP are often wrong so don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t go your way at first. Current figures show that 67% of PIP decisions are overturned if they reach the tribunal stage of appeal, at which the case is heard by an independent panel including a doctor and a person with experience in disability issues. Equity’s Social Security & Tax team can help you work out if a decision is correct and decide whether to challenge it. In appropriate cases, the team can help argue your case to PIP and represent you at a tribunal hearing.
What you need to know
Yes, DWP can ask about your work because they say it ‘might be relevant’ so you need to address your work in your PIP assessment. The PIP Assessment Guide says at paragraph 1.6.21:
“The employment status of the claimant might be relevant, and this should be explored and recorded as part of the evidence gathered in ‘social and occupational history’. If the HP identifies inconsistencies between work and information on the claimant questionnaire, the HP should question these inconsistencies and document the response. The HP should record the occupation and the nature of the job for example, activities on a daily/weekly basis, including any reasonable adjustments made by the employer. They should also include information where the claimant has given up work or changed their job due to the functional limitations of their health condition or impairment.”
However, DWP should only use relevant, specific, identified factors from your work and, if they conclude that your work activities mean you do not qualify for PIP, they must make findings of fact based on your information, not their assumptions.
- Are there restrictions on the amount of work you can do due to your impairment. Explain why.
- If you do not work very often, explain how often you work. A diary of recent months can help here.
- Are there restrictions on the type of work you can do
- Do you have adaptations to the work environment to cater for your impairment
- Do you have support from another person in the workplace or in preparing for work
- Do you have Access to Work
- Has there been an occupational therapist assessment of your work needs
- Make sure your evidence covers these restrictions, limitations and adaptations.
For example, imagine the decision-maker reads in an assessor’s report that you work as a dancer and it says nothing else about your work. This could give the impression to the decision-maker that you are able to dance full-time without any support, adaptations or restrictions. If that’s not the case, you need to give information in your evidence to counter that impression.
At work, it is natural to focus on things we can do rather than things we can’t, so talking about your work can give the impression that you are less impaired than you really are. However, to get the right PIP award, you need to focus on what you can’t do during the whole process, from the form to the medical assessment. If necessary, be prepared to divert the conversation with the healthcare professional away from your work to other areas which give a better indication of your situation.
PIP is a purely points-based system. If you score the points, nothing else matters. Make yourself aware of the rules. Think about the points you are aiming for and how you satisfy the descriptors. Your evidence needs to explain why your work is not inconsistent with the points you should score.
Check the PIP scoring descriptors here.
Check the PIP assessment criteria guide here.
Understand the important ‘variability’ and ‘reliability’ rules.
- Variability: a scoring descriptor can apply to you in an activity where your impairment affects your ability to complete an activity, at some stage of the day, on more than 50 per cent of days in the 12 month period. For example, if you experience fatigue, you might be able to work on better days and take time to prepare and recover. If you don’t work on more days than you work and on the non-work days you satisfy a PIP descriptor, this rule means that your work would not prevent you scoring points for that descriptor. If this applies to you, make sure you include this information about variability.
- Reliability: to be assessed as able to carry out an activity to the level described, you must satisfy the descriptor ‘reliably’ that is safely, to an acceptable standard, repeatedly and in reasonable time. For example, if it takes you more than twice as long to get dressed as it would take someone without an impairment, you could score points for dressing and undressing because you are not doing it ‘reliably’. If you force yourself to walk 200m through an unacceptable level of pain, you are not walking 200m safely. There is more information about this here.
- You can satisfy a PIP descriptor if it only applies to you for part of the day, so long as it has some tangible impact on your activity during a day, but not more than that. Case law has firmly established this principle but assessors frequently overlook it
People make assumptions all the time but PIP should not. The PIP decision-makers are allowed to take into account “relevant and genuinely comparable activities” from your work when deciding whether you are entitled to PIP. The PIP healthcare assessors are allowed to ask about your work and what is involved. However, neither should not make assumptions about your abilities and you can help avoid this by providing good evidence.
Your work could indicate to someone who doesn’t know you or know about the entertainment industry that you don’t have problems with an activity. If you do have problems, explain this. For example, people can assume that performers are ‘confident’ and that confidence is incompatible with impairment due to depression or anxiety.
This important case is about how PIP should take account of workplace activities when deciding whether the claimant could engage with people socially. The claimant worked as a GP receptionist. PIP was allowed to take ‘relevant and genuinely comparable’ aspects of her work into account, but should also consider what happens when she engages with people outside the work environment.
Your personal evidence is made up of the PIP form and what you say to the healthcare professional during the assessment. If you can get third party evidence, do so and make sure the assessor has read it. This can include evidence from medical professionals and other authorities, but also friends, family and colleagues can provide statements describing your limitations.