People Data & Analytics • 7 MIN READ
Diversity Data Reporting: What to Measure and How to Share It
MAY 17, 2026
Diversity data tells you whether your inclusion intentions are producing equitable outcomes. Here is how to collect, analyse, and communicate it effectively.
What diversity data to collect
The minimum diversity dataset for most UK organisations includes: gender representation at each level of the organisation, ethnicity representation (where employees have consented to share this data), age distribution, and disability declaration rate. For organisations covered by the Public Sector Equality Duty or subject to gender pay gap reporting, these are legal requirements rather than optional. Voluntary disclosure rates for ethnicity and disability are typically lower than for gender; improving them requires sustained trust-building communication that explains how the data will be used and protected.
From data to insight
Representation data at the whole-organisation level often obscures the most important patterns. The most revealing analysis is representation at each level of the management hierarchy: if women represent 50% of the entry-level workforce but only 20% of senior leadership, that is a structural equity problem that the headline figure does not reveal. Similarly, analysing pay equity within each grade band (not just the overall gender pay gap, which is affected by representation differences across levels) identifies whether employees in the same role are paid equitably.
