Benefits & Comp • 8 MIN READ
Gender Pay Gap Reporting: What It Means and How to Improve Your Numbers
JUN 10, 2026
UK employers with 250 or more employees must report their gender pay gap annually. Here is what the numbers mean and how to drive genuine improvement.
Understanding the gender pay gap figures
The gender pay gap is not the same as unequal pay. Unequal pay means paying a woman less than a man for the same role, which has been unlawful in the UK since the Equal Pay Act 1970. The gender pay gap measures the difference between the average hourly earnings of men and women across the whole organisation, regardless of role. A gap typically reflects the fact that women are underrepresented in senior, higher-paying roles and overrepresented in junior, lower-paying roles. Reducing the gap therefore requires improving representation at senior levels, not simply adjusting individual salaries.
How to close the gap sustainably
The interventions with the strongest evidence base for closing the gender pay gap are: structured promotion and progression processes that apply consistent criteria across genders, including women in sponsorship and mentoring programmes at a rate proportional to or above their representation, pay equity audits within each grade band to identify and correct any unexplained pay differences, shared parental leave policies that encourage men to take leave (addressing the 'motherhood penalty' in career progression), and flexible working options that allow parents of any gender to maintain career trajectory through caregiving periods.
