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Key Takeaways
The UK gender pay gap for all employees stood at 12.8% in April 2025, down from 13.1% the year before, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Gender pay gap reporting is a legal duty for employers with 250 or more staff. Equal pay, a separate legal concept, applies to every employer regardless of size.
From spring 2027, employers who already report their gender pay gap will also need to publish an action plan under the Employment Rights Act 2025.
Salary benchmarking is voluntary and distinct from statutory pay gap reporting, and any SME can start using it.
Eight in ten jobseekers say they'd avoid a role that doesn't list the pay, yet only 42% of HR sector job adverts currently do.
What is the UK gender pay gap in 2026?
The gender pay gap measures the difference between men's and women's average hourly earnings, expressed as a percentage of men's pay. If you're weighing up what it means for your own business, our HR consultants can talk you through where you stand.
According to the Office for National Statistics' 2025 gender pay gap bulletin, the UK's all-employee gender pay gap was 12.8% in April 2025, down from 13.1% the year before.
Among full-time employees, the gap was smaller at 6.9%, continuing a steady decline from 7.1% in 2024. Among part-time employees, women's median hourly pay was actually 2.9% higher than men's.
Worth noting: this is a median figure excluding overtime, not a mean. An older 18% figure from 2018 still circulates online and shouldn't be treated as current. The full-time gap has fallen by roughly a quarter over the past decade, genuine progress, though closing what remains tends to need more deliberate action than the earlier gains did.
Speak to our CIPD-qualified HR expertsGender pay gap versus equal pay: what's the difference?
Equal pay means men and women doing the same or equivalent work for the same employer must receive the same pay. It's set out in the Equality Act 2010 and applies to every employer, whatever their size.
The gender pay gap is different. As the Equality and Human Rights Commission explains, it's a broader, organisation-wide measure of the average earnings gap between all men and all women, regardless of role.
A business can have no equal pay problem at all and still show a significant gender pay gap, typically because more men sit in senior, higher-paid roles.
The fix differs too. An equal pay issue needs correcting directly, and may need specialist legal advice. A gender pay gap is usually about structural patterns in recruitment, promotion and progression, which is where benchmarking and policy change come in.
Do you have to report your gender pay gap?
Reporting is a legal requirement for employers with 250 or more staff on the snapshot date. Under gov.uk's gender pay gap reporting guidance, that's 5th April for most private and voluntary sector organisations.
These employers must publish their mean and median gender pay gap, mean and median bonus gap, bonus proportions, and the pay quartile split by gender, within 12 months, on the government's gender pay gap service.
Under 250 employees, reporting is voluntary, though a growing number of SMEs report anyway as part of a wider transparency strategy.
What's changing: gender pay gap action plans
Under the Employment Rights Act 2025, employers who already report their gender pay gap will also need to publish an action plan covering how they're closing it, or supporting employees through menopause. This is currently voluntary.
According to government guidance on closing your gender pay gap, it becomes mandatory from spring 2027, subject to legislation. Worth planning for now if it applies to you.
Is ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting coming too?
The government has confirmed it intends to make ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting mandatory for employers with 250 or more staff, likely mirroring the gender pay gap structure. As legal commentary on the proposed changes sets out, this isn't law yet, it's expected via a future Equality (Race and Disability) Bill, with no implementation date confirmed. Treat it as a direction of travel, not a current duty.
Not sure whether reporting applies to you, or what the spring 2027 action plan requirement will mean for your business? Book your free consultation call today.
What is salary benchmarking and why does it matter for SMEs?
Salary benchmarking means comparing what you pay against market data for equivalent roles in your sector and region. It's voluntary, and distinct from statutory gender pay gap reporting, though the two connect: well-benchmarked pay is one of the most effective ways to stop structural gaps forming in the first place.
Good benchmarking looks beyond base salary to bonuses, pensions and the wider reward package, since candidates increasingly weigh the whole offer rather than take-home pay alone. Get it wrong and you risk losing people to competitors paying more for the same role. Get it right, and you're better placed to retain the people you've already invested in.
Where to find reliable UK salary data
You don't need an expensive subscription to start. ONS's Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings is a free, authoritative dataset covering pay by occupation, region and industry, the same data behind the official gender pay gap statistics.
CIPD's job evaluation and market pricing factsheet is a good next step for HR teams doing this for the first time. Whichever source you use, check the sample size and how recent it is. A stale or thin dataset can give false confidence.
Salary transparency: help or hindrance?
Pay secrecy has long been the UK default, but candidate expectations are shifting it. According to Totaljobs' Salary Trends Report 2026, eight in ten jobseekers say they'd avoid applying for a role without listed pay, yet the same report found only 42% of HR sector job adverts currently include salary information.
Transparency builds trust, since employees who understand how pay is set are less likely to assume unfairness where none exists. It can also create friction where colleagues in similar roles are paid differently for legitimate reasons, without a clear explanation. A workable middle ground for many SMEs is being transparent about how pay is decided, the bands and the criteria, even without publishing every individual figure.
Practical steps SMEs can take to close the gap
The same gov.uk guidance points to eight underlying causes worth investigating: pay levels and seniority structure, promotion patterns, recruitment practices, exit rates by gender, bonus and overtime allocation, performance scoring, part-time role availability, and support for caring responsibilities and flexible working. Working through these systematically, rather than guessing at one cause, is most likely to actually shift the number.
Recruitment, pay bands and family-friendly policies
A few changes make the most difference for SMEs specifically. State the pay band in job adverts rather than asking for salary history, which sets a fair starting point and avoids anchoring new hires' pay to what they earned elsewhere.
Offer flexible working genuinely, not just on paper. Only around 31% of UK job adverts currently mention flexible working at the point of hire, per the Timewise Flexible Jobs Index, despite it being one of the biggest factors in who applies and who stays.
Look closely at parental leave and returner support. ONS research on the impact of motherhood on earnings found mothers' monthly earnings fall by an average of 42%, around £1,051 a month, five years after a first birth compared with a year before, largely driven by reduced hours and career breaks. Genuinely accessible paternity leave and proper returner support help prevent this gap opening and widening.
Finally, look at who gets put forward for development and promotion, and whether that breaks down by gender. It's one of the eight causes gov.uk names directly, and often the easiest to miss because it happens gradually, through small day-to-day decisions rather than one obvious policy.
Find out how P3 can support your businessFrequently asked questions
What is the current UK gender pay gap? 12.8% for all employees in April 2025, according to the ONS, down from 13.1% the year before. The full-time-only gap was 6.9%.
What's the difference between the gender pay gap and equal pay? Equal pay means the same role, same employer, same pay, under the Equality Act 2010, for every employer. The gender pay gap is a wider, organisation-level average, usually caused by more men in senior roles rather than unequal pay for the same job.
Which employers have to report their gender pay gap? Employers with 250 or more employees on the snapshot date, 5 April for most, who must publish their figures within 12 months on the government's gender pay gap service.
What is salary benchmarking and why does it matter for SMEs? Comparing your pay and reward package against market data for similar roles in your sector and region. It's voluntary, and helps SMEs stay competitive without overpaying or underpaying.
How can a small business address pay fairness without a legal duty to report? Voluntary benchmarking, transparent pay bands, genuinely accessible flexible working, and fair, consistent progression decisions all help, even without a statutory obligation.
Is ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting becoming mandatory in the UK? The government has confirmed the intention, but it isn't law yet and no date has been set. Worth planning for, not treating as a current requirement.
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