Ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting in the UK

Following its pledge in its election manifesto, the Government has published a consultation paper on mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting for employers with more than 250 employees.

The purpose of the consultation is to seek views on the measures it proposes to include in the upcoming Equality (Race and Disability) Bill. 

The stated aim is, as far as possible, to extend the framework for gender pay gap reporting, introduced in Great Britain in 2017, to two new categories in the workforce (i.e. ethnicity and disability), and to require the reporting to take place on the same dates (4 April each year outside the public sector and 30 March for public bodies) using the same 'snapshot' dates to collect pay data from the workforce (5 April and 31 March respectively).

The consultation paper observes that gender pay gap reporting 'has led to greater transparency for employers and employees. It also gives employers important data to inform their actions to address inequalities'.  

In order to minimise additional burdens on business, the Government proposes to require employers to report the same set of pay gap measures for ethnicity and disability as are already used for gender reporting. This means reporting on: 

• mean differences in average hourly pay;
• median differences in average hourly pay;
• pay quarters – the percentage of employees in 4 equally-sized groups, ranked from highest to lowest hourly pay;
• mean differences in bonus pay;
• median differences in bonus pay;
• the percentage of employees receiving bonus pay for the relevant protected characteristic. 

In order to give context to the data, such as low levels of self reporting, it also proposes to require additional information on:

• the overall breakdown of their workforce by ethnicity and disability;
• the percentage of employees who did not disclose their personal data on their ethnicity and disability.

The consultation paper notes that there are distinct considerations for ethnicity and disability, particularly in relation to data collection and analysis, addressing issues such as:

• the number of ethnic minority groups to be included;
• the protection of privacy of employees where the numbers in a particular ethnic group are very low;
• the options for binary classification when comparing different ethnic groups (that is, whether and how to use White British employees as the comparator);
• whether to use the binary approach of comparing disabled employees to non-disabled employees or to use a more complex approach using different impairment types.

Responses are also sought in relation to the desirability of requiring employers to produce plans to address pay gaps highlighted by the data collection process.

The consultation responses the Government receives will inform and shape any legislation that follows and large employers may therefore wish to comment. 

The deadline for doing so is 11:59pm on 10 June 2025. Consultation responses can be submitted via the Equality (Race and Disability) Bill consultation survey.

This article is authored by Christina Morton, senior knowledge lawyer in our UK employment team.