UK gender pay gap 2026: why women are still being left behind
The UK’s 2026 gender pay gap reporting cycle has closed with a familiar verdict: the gap is narrowing, but far too slowly for comfort. Fresh figures point to modest progress in the headline numbers, yet the wider picture remains stubbornly unequal, particularly for women over 40, those working in finance, and women in part-time public sector roles. The government’s latest thinking on the drivers of the gap continues to point to occupational segregation, the motherhood penalty and slower progression for women as central forces keeping the divide in place.
The latest official gender pay gap figures from the Office for National Statistics show that, in April 2025, median hourly pay for full-time men was £20.27, compared with £18.87 for women. That translates into a full-time gender pay gap of 6.9%. Across all employees, the gap is wider: average hourly earnings were 12.8% lower for women than for men. For part-time workers, women’s median hourly pay was slightly higher than men’s. The difference matters because it reflects the reality of the labour market as it is actually lived, not just the full-time slice that often dominates the debate.
Employer reporting suggests movement, but only at a glacial pace. Analysis of the mandatory gender pay gap reporting data indicates that the mean pay gap fell from 11.2% in 2024/25 to 10.7% in 2025/26, while the median gap slipped from 8.6% to 8.1%. That is progress, but the sort that is easy to lose in the noise of annual reporting cycles. The government’s guidance makes clear that the reporting regime is designed not just to expose disparities, but to push employers towards action.
The legal and policy backdrop has also shifted. According to the government’s Employment Rights Act 2025 factsheets, the legislation received Royal Assent on 18 December 2025 and is intended to strengthen the UK’s workplace equality framework. Under the new regime, employers with 250 or more staff will be able to publish equality action plans voluntarily from April 2026, before the requirement becomes mandatory in 2027. The government published its guidance on gender pay gap and menopause action plans on 4 March 2026, setting out that employers will need at least two commitments, including one on pay and one on menopause support, with plans reviewed annually.
Reporting compliance was patchy early in the 2026 cycle. Government data on the gender pay gap service shows that only 12.98% of in-scope employers had reported by 30 January 2026, leaving most organisations still to file. The public gender pay gap database remains the most useful tool for workers assessing an employer, allowing them to compare data over five years and across sectors. That matters because the real disparities are often hidden by averages: the gap is particularly large in finance and insurance, where men earn 32.2% more than women, and in administrative and secretarial work, where the gap stands at 21.9%.
Age and seniority sharpen the divide further. The ONS dataset shows that the gender pay gap is wider for workers aged 40 and above, and larger among higher-paid employees than among lower-paid ones. The government’s research also underscores why: women remain under-represented in senior and high-paying roles, while career breaks, caring responsibilities and occupational sorting continue to shape outcomes over time. Civil Service Statistics 2026 point in the same direction, with women still under-represented in the top pay quartile and over-represented at the bottom, despite sector-specific efforts to improve balance.
The direction of travel is clear enough. Transparency is increasing, but transparency alone does not close a gap that is rooted in promotion, pay-setting and career structure. For women reading the figures, the message is straightforward: the gap is still there, it opens most sharply later in working life, and the new action-plan regime is the first serious attempt in years to force employers to respond rather than simply disclose.
