Website accessibility audits that find and fix the barriers

What is a website accessibility audit?

A website accessibility audit is a structured test of your website or app to find the barriers that stop disabled people using it, measured against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). It covers people who use screen readers, keyboards instead of a mouse, magnification, voice control or captions, and people with cognitive or motor impairments.

Varsuite audits against WCAG 2.2 level AA, the current version of the standard. It is the level referenced by UK public sector rules and it covers everything in WCAG 2.1 AA, the level behind the European Accessibility Act.

You get a clear report that lists each issue, where it appears, who it affects and how to fix it, ranked by impact so you know what to tackle first. Then, if you want us to, we fix it.

Does the European Accessibility Act apply to UK businesses?

Yes, if you sell certain products or services to consumers in the EU. The European Accessibility Act (Directive 2019/882) has applied since 28 June 2025 to businesses offering in-scope products and services on the EU market, wherever the business is based.

Services in scope include:

• E-commerce, meaning online shops selling to EU consumers
• Consumer banking services
• E-books and e-reading software
• Passenger transport services such as air, bus, rail and water travel
• Electronic communications and access to audiovisual media

There is an exemption for microenterprises providing services: businesses with fewer than 10 staff and an annual turnover or balance sheet of no more than €2 million. If you have 10 or more staff and sell online to EU customers, the Act is likely to apply to you.

Penalties are set by each EU country. In Germany, for example, fines can reach €100,000. Our audit tells you where you stand, and our Testing & QA service keeps new releases accessible.

Is website accessibility a legal requirement in the UK?

For UK businesses, the main law is the Equality Act 2010. It requires service providers to make reasonable adjustments so disabled people are not put at a substantial disadvantage, and that duty is anticipatory, meaning you should plan for disabled customers before anyone complains.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission's 2026 Code of Practice for services, in force since 5 August 2026, states that the obligation also applies to services provided on a website.

The Act does not name WCAG, but WCAG 2.2 AA is the widely accepted benchmark for what an accessible website looks like. Public sector bodies have a stricter, explicit duty to meet WCAG 2.2 AA and publish an accessibility statement under the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018.

We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice. What we can do is show you, in detail, how accessible your site really is and fix it.

What does a Varsuite accessibility audit check?

We test your key pages and journeys, such as the home page, product or service pages, contact forms, booking and checkout, against WCAG 2.2 AA. Automated tools catch some issues quickly, but many barriers only show up when a person tests the site properly, so our UK team checks every journey by hand.

Each audit covers:

• Keyboard access: every link, menu, form and button usable without a mouse, with a visible focus that is never hidden
• Screen reader testing: headings, labels, images and announcements that make sense when read aloud
• Colour contrast: text and controls readable for people with low vision
• Forms and errors: labelled fields, clear error messages and no needless re-entry of information
• Images and media: meaningful alt text, captions and transcripts
• Mobile and touch: targets large enough to tap, and no gestures that require dragging
• Structure and language: logical headings, landmarks and page language
• Login and checkout: no memory puzzles, and support for password managers

We audit websites, web apps and iOS and Android apps, whether we built them or not.

What are the most common accessibility problems?

Most websites fail on the same handful of issues, and most of them are quick to fix once found. WebAIM's 2026 analysis of the top one million home pages found detectable WCAG failures on 95.9% of them, with an average of 56 errors per page (WebAIM Million, 2026).

The most common failures were:

1. Low contrast text, on 83.9% of home pages
2. Missing alternative text on images, on 53.1%
3. Form fields without labels, on 51%
4. Empty links with no text, on 46.3%
5. Empty buttons, on 30.6%
6. A missing page language, on 13.5%

These numbers only cover what automated tools can detect. A manual audit usually finds more, especially around keyboard use, focus and how forms behave.

Why is accessibility good for business?

Because a quarter of your potential customers may be affected. There are 16.7 million disabled people in the UK, around 25% of the population, according to the government's Family Resources Survey 2024 to 2025 (DWP, 2026).

When a site is hard to use, people leave. In the Click-Away Pound survey, 69% of disabled shoppers said they click away from websites that present barriers.

Accessibility also helps everyone else. Clear headings, descriptive links, labelled forms and proper alt text make a site easier to use on a phone in bright sunlight, quicker to complete, and easier for search engines and AI answer engines to understand. That is why accessibility work sits naturally alongside our SEO and AIO service.

Will an accessibility overlay or plugin make my website compliant?

No. An accessibility overlay is a widget or plugin that claims to make a website accessible automatically. It cannot fix the underlying code, and many disabled users find overlays get in the way of the assistive technology they already use.

In 2025 the US Federal Trade Commission ordered overlay provider accessiBe to pay $1 million over claims that its tool could make any website compliant with WCAG.

Real accessibility comes from fixing the site itself: the colours, the markup, the forms and the way components behave. That is what our audits find and what our fixes change.

How does Varsuite fix accessibility issues?

We fix the issues in your site's code and content, then re-test to prove they are resolved. You can hand the whole report to us, give it to your own developer, or split the work between both.

Our process is simple:

1. Audit: we test your site against WCAG 2.2 AA and send a plain-English report ranked by impact
2. Fix: our AI agents make the changes quickly and our UK team checks every one
3. Re-test: we test again by hand so you know each fix works
4. Statement: we draft an accessibility statement that explains how accessible your site is and how people can contact you
5. Keep it accessible: new content and releases are checked as part of our Management service, so standards do not slip

Where a site is too old or too broken to fix economically, we will tell you honestly and quote for an accessible rebuild through our Websites service instead.

Accessibility audits in Lancashire and across the UK

Varsuite is based in Rishton, near Blackburn, and audits websites for businesses across Lancashire, including Blackburn, Burnley, Accrington, Preston, Clitheroe and Darwen, and across the North West in Manchester and Liverpool.

Audits are carried out remotely, so we work with businesses anywhere in the UK. If you are local and would rather talk it through face to face, we are happy to come to you.

Whether you run an online shop selling into Europe, a professional services firm, a care provider or a manufacturer with a trade portal, we will tell you clearly where your site stands and what to do about it.

How does pricing work for an accessibility audit?

Cost depends on how many pages, templates and journeys need testing, so we scope each audit rather than quoting a flat figure. A small brochure site is a much smaller job than a large online shop or a web app.

Your quote sets the scope, payment stages and acceptance process before work begins, and you see the full report before any fixes are agreed. Fixes are quoted separately so you stay in control of what is done and when.

For ongoing protection, regular accessibility checks can sit inside a monthly care plan alongside hosting, security and updates.