If you are an individual YouTuber or small creator in the UK, there is usually no specific law that forces you to caption every video, but captions are still the single most useful accessibility step you can take. The legal picture changes if you make video for a business serving the public, for a public sector body, or for a broadcaster or regulated on-demand service. This guide explains who is covered by what, and what "good" captions actually look like in practice.
Not legal advice. This is a general overview written for creators, not a substitute for advice on your specific situation. If you are producing video for a client with legal obligations, ask them (or their legal team) which standard they need you to meet.
Why captions matter beyond the law
Captions are used by far more people than those who are d/Deaf or hard of hearing. They help people watching with the sound off on a train, viewers whose first language is not English, people with auditory processing differences, and anyone trying to follow a strong accent, a noisy location or technical vocabulary. For creators, accurate caption files also give platforms a clean text version of your video, which is helpful for search and for translation later.
So even where nothing obliges you to caption, it is worth treating captions as part of the edit rather than an afterthought.
The UK legal landscape in plain English
There are four things people usually mean when they talk about "caption law" in the UK. They apply to very different groups.
| Framework | Who it mainly applies to | What it means for video |
|---|---|---|
| Equality Act 2010 | Service providers, employers, education providers and others who serve the public | A duty to make reasonable adjustments so disabled people are not put at a substantial disadvantage |
| Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 | Public sector bodies (councils, NHS bodies, universities, many schools, central government, etc.) | Websites and apps must meet a defined accessibility standard and publish an accessibility statement |
| WCAG 2.2 | A technical standard, not a law in itself | Sets out testable success criteria, including captions for pre-recorded and live video |
| Ofcom rules on access services | Licensed TV broadcasters and, increasingly, larger on-demand programme services | Targets for subtitling, audio description and signing |
The Equality Act 2010
The Equality Act applies to organisations that provide goods, facilities or services to the public, as well as employers and education providers. One of its key ideas is the duty to make reasonable adjustments, and for services this duty is anticipatory: you are expected to think ahead about what disabled people might reasonably need, rather than waiting for someone to complain.
For a business that uses video to deliver its service (training courses, product instructions, customer onboarding, paid online classes), captions are a very common and relatively low-cost adjustment. Whether a particular adjustment is "reasonable" depends on factors such as cost, practicality and the size of the organisation, which is why we cannot give a universal yes or no.
For an individual making free entertainment videos as a hobby, the position is far less clear-cut, and it would be wrong to say that the Act definitely requires you to caption. What we can say is that once your channel becomes part of a business offering a service to the public, it becomes much more sensible to treat captions as the default.
Public sector bodies and the 2018 Regulations
If you make video for a public sector client, the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 are the rules that matter most. They require in-scope websites and mobile apps to meet an accessibility standard based on WCAG and to publish an accessibility statement explaining how accessible the service is and what is not yet compliant.
At the time of writing, the regulations contain exemptions for some video content: for example, pre-recorded audio and video published before 23 September 2020, and live audio and video (unless it is later kept on the site as a recording). New pre-recorded video on a public sector website is generally expected to have captions. The exact rules and the version of WCAG that is monitored have changed over time, so check the current guidance on gov.uk ("Understanding accessibility requirements for public sector bodies") before quoting a standard to a client.
WCAG 2.2: the technical benchmark
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are published by the W3C. WCAG 2.2 is the current version and contains the success criteria most accessibility audits test against. For video, the ones that matter are:
- 1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded) — Level A. Pre-recorded video with sound needs captions.
- 1.2.4 Captions (Live) — Level AA. Live video with sound needs captions.
- 1.2.3 and 1.2.5 (audio description) — where important visual information is not explained in the soundtrack, an audio description or text alternative may be needed.
WCAG's definition of captions includes relevant non-speech information as well as dialogue: sound effects, music cues and speaker identification where they matter for understanding. You can read the full criteria at >w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/quickref.
Ofcom: only for broadcasters and on-demand services
Ofcom's access services rules apply to licensed television channels, which must meet subtitling, audio description and signing targets. The Media Act 2024 gives Ofcom powers to set similar requirements for larger on-demand programme services, with the detail being introduced in stages.
These rules are about broadcasters and regulated streaming services. An ordinary YouTube or TikTok channel is not a licensed broadcaster, so Ofcom's subtitling targets do not apply to you just because you publish video online. If you supply programmes to a broadcaster or streamer, however, they may pass their own subtitle specification down to you. Ofcom publishes its current code and guidance at >ofcom.org.uk.
What good captions look like
Whatever your legal position, the quality bar is similar. The >BBC Subtitle Guidelines are one of the most useful free references for UK English, and they are widely used well beyond the BBC.
Accuracy first
Auto-generated captions are a starting point, not a finished product. Check names, place names, brand names and technical terms, and correct anything that changes the meaning. A single wrong word ("can" versus "can't") can reverse a sentence. If your auto captions are consistently poor, the fix is often upstream: see our guide to transcription accuracy tips.
Readable timing and line length
Captions that flash past too quickly are not accessible, even if they are word-perfect. Keep to one or two lines, break lines at natural phrase boundaries, and check the reading speed. Our guide to caption reading speed explains characters per second, and you can test a file with the caption speed checker.
Include meaningful sounds
Add non-speech information when it matters to the story, for example:
00:01:12,400 --> 00:01:14,000
[door slams]
00:01:14,100 --> 00:01:16,900
JAMES: Who's there?
00:01:17,200 --> 00:01:19,500
[tense music]
Do not describe every background noise; include sounds a hearing viewer would actually notice and rely on.
Identify speakers
When the speaker is off-screen or it is not obvious who is talking, add a name label or use a clear convention such as a dash for a change of speaker. Be consistent across the video.
Prefer closed captions where the platform supports them
Burned-in text looks good on Shorts and Reels, but viewers cannot resize it, turn it off, or change its colour. Where the platform allows, upload a proper caption file as well. We compare the two approaches in open vs closed captions.
Common mistakes UK creators make
- Publishing auto-captions unchecked. Platform speech recognition struggles with regional accents, crosstalk and specialist terms.
- Captioning the words but not the meaning. Omitting "[laughs]" or "[sarcastically]" can change how a line reads.
- Relying only on burned-in captions. They cannot be adjusted for low vision and are not available as text to screen reader users.
- Letting captions drift out of sync after an edit. If you trim the start of a video, re-time the file; see fixing subtitle sync drift.
- Forgetting the rest of the page. For client websites, the video player itself must be usable with a keyboard, and a transcript is often helpful alongside captions.
- Quoting the wrong standard. Promising a public sector client "WCAG compliance" without confirming which version and level they are monitored against can cause problems at sign-off.
Quick checklist
- Captions are present for every video with meaningful speech.
- Names, places and jargon have been checked by a human.
- Lines are short, broken at natural points, and readable at your target speed.
- Relevant sounds and music cues are included in square brackets.
- Speakers are identified where it is not obvious who is talking.
- A closed caption file is uploaded where the platform supports it.
- For client work, you have confirmed the required standard (for example WCAG 2.2 AA) in writing.
- Captions have been re-checked after the final edit, not just the rough cut.
FAQ
Do I legally have to caption my YouTube videos in the UK?
For most individual creators publishing free videos, there is no specific UK law that says every video must be captioned. The Equality Act may become relevant if your videos form part of a service your business provides to the public. Captions are strongly recommended either way.
Are YouTube's automatic captions good enough?
They are a useful draft, but they are rarely accurate enough to publish unchecked, particularly with accents, names or technical terms. Download them, correct them, and re-upload the edited file.
Does WCAG 2.2 apply to me?
WCAG is a technical standard rather than a law. It becomes a requirement when a law, contract or policy points to it, as happens with public sector websites and many corporate clients. It is still an excellent quality benchmark for anyone.
Are subtitles and captions the same thing in the UK?
In everyday UK usage, "subtitles" often covers both. Technically, captions (or subtitles for the d/Deaf and hard of hearing) include sound effects and speaker labels, whereas translation subtitles usually contain dialogue only.