Shannon Burns, the ex‑vice‑president of engineering at London‑based Gitpod, was dismissed in June 2023 after a team‑building trip to Austria that saw her spend a night in a sauna because she misplaced her key. The dismissal, which followed a series of performance concerns, was challenged as discriminatory under the Equality Act, with Burns citing ADHD and dyslexia as factors that had not been accommodated.
The Birmingham Employment Tribunal, in a May 2025 ruling, found that Gitpod failed to make reasonable adjustments for Burns’s disabilities and awarded her a claim of £76,071,992, encompassing projected future earnings and other losses. The figure stems from a detailed schedule of loss that assumes she would have continued earning a £220,000 salary plus £78,000 bonus had she remained in senior tech leadership.
Gitpod had sought to cap the claim at £1 million, but the judge rejected the motion, noting Burns’s unusually high earnings history and the need for further evidence before deeming the valuation unrealistic. The tribunal’s order also requires Gitpod to disclose information about its recent acquisition by OpenAI, in which Burns holds shares.
The next phase will be a separate hearing to determine the precise compensation to be awarded, a process that could set a new UK record—current top employment tribunal payouts hover around £4.58 million.
Burns, who left tech after the dismissal, is now retraining as a therapist, a shift that underscores the personal cost of the alleged discrimination. Her case is being watched by disability‑rights advocates and industry insiders as a potential bellwether for how UK courts handle high‑earning disabled professionals.
If the full amount is ultimately awarded, it would dwarf the largest compensation ever paid in a UK employment tribunal, spotlighting the need for robust workplace adjustments and transparent grievance procedures in the technology sector.