The 2025 Gender Pay Gap Report, published by PwC, shows the average gender pay gap in the UK for 2024/25 saw the second largest decrease since 2017 – when pay gap reporting was introduced.
The report, which uses information provided by employers to the government in the pay gap reports, also showed that 2024/25 also saw the largest number of organisations submitting a gender pay gap report – 10,700.
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What does the data show?
Data from the report shows that:
- The mean hourly pay gap decreased by 0.6 percentage points to 11.2%, from 11.8%.
- The median hourly pay gap decreased by 0.5 percentage points to 8.6%, from 9.1%.
This is in comparison to the 2023/24 data where the median hourly pay gap decreased by 0.4% but falls slightly short of the highest recorded figure in 2022/23 where it fell by 0.7%.
Some industries have reduced their pay gaps more than others with real estate and banking decreasing them by 14.9 and 8.6 percentage points respectively. However, it should be noted that businesses in these sectors have historically had some of biggest pay gaps in the first place.
Extending pay gap reporting to include ethnicity and disability
The Government intends to make further progress with pay equality in the UK, starting with making the publishing of Gender Pay Gap Action Plans mandatory for large businesses (those with 250 or more employees) as part of the Employment Rights Bill.
Additionally, the Government is expected to table the Equality (Race and Disability) Bill later this year following a consultation seeking views on how to implement ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting for large employers.
In the consultation the Government proposed to use the same measures as those used for gender pay gap reporting, for race and disability reporting. Like gender pay gap reporting, the data will taken from a snapshot of time, however there will be some additional considerations such as ensuring there are at least 10 employees representing each group being compared.
The future of pay equality and transparency
Alongside this, the Government also released a separate call for evidence seeking views on extending the right to equal pay to include ethnic minority and disabled people alongside exploring ways to improve pay transparency. Measures may include employers:
- Providing the specific salary or salary ranges of a job on the job advert or prior to interview
- Not asking candidates their salary history
- Publishing or providing employees with information on pay, pay structures and criteria for progression
- Providing employees with information on their pay level and how their pay compares to those doing the same role or work of equal value
- Identifying actions that they need to take to avoid equal pay breaches occurring or continuing
Whilst there is no current timeframe for the implementation of the Equality (Race and Disability) Bill, or measures explored in the call for evidence, employers – especially larger ones – should review their current practices and prepare themselves to align with potential upcoming legislation.
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