Stats Training Materials – Pay Gaps Analytics and Diversity Data

*** Updated with links B16 and P9, P10 and P11 for 3 presentations I have given recently on gender & ethnicity pay gap reporting. I have also added new sections I & J**

The 5 steps to closing a pay and/or representation gap are –

Define what success looks like i.e. where you want to be in the future
Measure where you are today
Analyse your data to understand why you are where you are today & what the key drivers are of your gaps
Implement actions which move you from where you are today to put you on the path to where you want to be in the future
Control the key drivers to ensure you are on the right track

All steps require the use of statistical thinking and statistical methods. Other skills and processes are also needed but they cannot succeed on their own without the help of statistical thinking.

My 1-day training course “Introduction to Pay Gap Analytics” will take you through the different topics you need to master to become better at progressing through the 5 steps. If you are attending my course, you will need to have this page open on your browser as you will be given a number of weblinks referring to posts listed here.

Each weblink has a letter denoting a section (list of sections given below) and a number denoting the specific post.

A – Finding pay gap data in the UK
B – Understanding pay gap data
C – Detecting errors in pay gap data
D – Improving pay gap reporting
E – Closing your pay gap
F – Finding pay gap data for other countries
G – Good practice pay gap reports from employers
I – Measuring Impact & Trends
J – Judgements from employment tribunals & courts
M – Miscellaneous posts related to pay gaps
P – Podcasts, Presentations, Interviews & Videos
T – Tweeting about pay gaps
V – archiVed material

There may be other posts which are not included in the list below. Please visit my Diversity homepage to see a full list of my blog posts relating to pay gaps and diversity issues listed in reverse chronological order.

A. Finding pay gap data in the UK

Download my spreadsheet with the latest gender pay gap data from over 15,000 employers
Government Equalities Office (GEO) portal for all employer pay gap statistics.
- This link also includes government guidance on how to calculate and report your gender pay gap data.
- The regulations underpinning this guidance can be found in UK Gender Pay Gap Reporting Regulations 2017 (private sector).
- The regulations for the public sector (England only) are in schedule 2 of this link.
*** archived *** see link V3
Office of National Statistics (ONS) for Gender for latest year. For time series since 1997, click here
Office of National Statistics (ONS) for Ethnicity (note latest data is for 2012-2022)
Download my spreadsheet with ONS ethnicity pay gap data along with explanation of how to interpret the data.

Section F tells you where to find data for other countries.

B. Understanding pay gap data

You’ve done your pay gap calculations but what do the various numbers mean? What are they telling you and perhaps more importantly, what are they not telling you?

7 Ways to misuse gender pay gap data
The difference between unequal pay and gender pay gaps
*** archived *** see link V1
*** archived *** see link V2
How winning an equal pay case can widen the gender pay gap
Why Gender Pay Fingerprints are superior to Gender Pay Gaps
*** this is now weblink I1
Why Novartis UK should have paid attention to a WW2 Bletchley Park codebreaker
Why ONS reports more negative gender pay gaps & more favourable ethnicity pay gaps
Why employers should calculate and track Gender Swap Numbers
Why Ryanair’s Gender Pay Gap Report is my favourite
Why do female dominated public sector employers have such large gender pay gaps?
*** this is now weblink I3
Should we have 30 “Equal Pay Days” every year?
Why 33 London Councils are in fact One Council based on their gender pay gaps

C. Detecting errors in pay gap data

In most cases, the relevant calculations will have been undertaken by an HR professional. I know from my 30 years’ experience of working with non-statisticians that even though the calculations may appear to be simple to some people, errors will happen. The links given here tell you how you can spot errors in pay gap data, some of which are relatively simple, others more subtle.

D. Improving pay gap reporting

The existing gender pay gap reporting process stems from the Equality Act 2010. It is clear to me that whoever drafted the pay gap reporting regulations was not a statistician and as a result, improvements will be needed going forward. Some of these improvements can be implemented by individual employers, others will need to be led by the Government Equalities Office who are the custodians of the relevant legislation.

My 12 recommendations for improving GPG reporting
The RSS’s 10 recommendations for improving GPG reporting
Should the UK introduce Ethnicity Pay Gap reporting?
My evidence to the Treasury Select Committee on improving GPG reporting
What is the best way to do Ethnicity Pay Gap reporting?
My 7 recommendations for introducing Ethnicity Pay Gap reporting
*** this is now link B10
*** this is now link B11
My 7 + 5 recommendations for amending UK pay gap legislation
How many ethnic categories should an employer report?
My 9-point briefing note for MPs ahead of Parliament’s debate on ethnicity pay gap reporting
My thoughts on Parliament’s (House of Commons and House of Lords) debate about ethnicity pay gap reporting
Why the disability pay gap statistic may be a lie and what you should report instead
Why I am disappointed with the government’s ethnicity pay gap guidance to employers even though I wrote the draft version.
Why Disability Confident is the template for mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting, not gender pay gap reporting
My briefing note on 9 statistical challenges for mandatory ethnicity & disability pay gap reporting and my response to 33 questions asked by the government in their 2025 consultation on whether ethnicity & disability pay gap reporting should be mandatory.

E. Closing your pay gap

So you’ve worked out your pay and/or representation gap but how do you go about identifying the best way to close it? This is why I support the principle of pay gap reporting as it forces employers to test ways of closing their gaps. Over the next few years, I am hoping to learn from employers what works and what doesn’t work. Statistics will play a big role in making this happen and these posts explain how.

F. Finding pay gap data for other countries

Update 9th September 2021 – this section was created on this date. If you are following a weblink from before this date that starts with F, these links can now be found in section M.

I began researching how other countries measure pay gaps & inequality during the summer of 2021 so you should expect this section to evolve as more countries introduce pay gap reporting.

A quick overview – This is a summary written by GapSquare. You need to scroll past the 1st section looking at the UK to get to it.
Australia – This is the Australian government portal for employer level gender pay gap data. You can see a discussion about the Australian statistics mean in link M10 below.
Ireland – In May 2022, Ireland confirmed that June 2022 would be the 1st snapshot month for employers with 250 or more employees to collect their pay data with a view to reporting by December 2022. Essentially the Irish system is a copy and paster of the UK system but there are some differences. For example, pay gap statistics also need to be reported for part time and temporary employees separately. But overall, Ireland has chosen to repeat many of the mistakes made in the UK system rather than correcting them.
France – The French system is a horrible bureaucratic mess which is in fact an internal indirect method of measuring of gender pay inequality rather than gender pay gaps. I have no desire to endorse this rubbish and if you want to avoid entering this hellscape, you can taste the horror by comparing and contrasting Easyjet’s UK report and French report instead.
Iceland – Iceland require employers to audit their pay setting processes every 3 years using an Auditable Management Standard (IST85) which are common in quality management circles. Such audits are very likely to require direct measures of pay inequality using a sample of employees. Whilst little known at present, I can see this becoming more widespread as politicians and the public come to understand that pay gaps and pay inequality are two completely different issues (as explained in link B2 above) that require different methods of reporting.

G. Good Practice Reporting by Employers

By now, you might be thinking I spend all my time criticising employers but the reason I write these blogs is to help employers do it right. Here I link to actual reports published by employers so you can see for yourself what I consider good practice to look like in real life. That does not mean everything the highlighted employers do is good and I try to point out the flaws where possible.

Ryanair – The link takes you to the GEO portal where you can find all their pay gap reports, all of which use more or less the same 1 page format in Ryanair branding. I explained in link B11 above (which looks at their 2018/19 report) why their reports are my favourite but it’s mostly because they report the number of pilots and cabin crew they have by sex. The reports are not perfect so do read link B11 to understand what’s missing.
Department of Work & Pensions 2022 – I explain why I like this report in link C5 above. Again it is not perfect but like Ryanair, they have disclosed the number of men and women by Job type. This is key to understanding what needs to happen next to reach their goals. DWP are also a rare example where the mean pay gap is more meaningful than the median pay gap.
Rider Levitt Bucknall (RLB) 2023 – I find this report far too wordy for my liking and it comes across as one that has spent too much time with their PR department. But I do like the fact it starts out with overall representation of men and women and then breaks it down into the four pay quarters. They then report their pay gaps in a less than ideal way before ending with descriptions of what they did in the last year and their goals for the next year.
Advania UK 2023 – This looks like a report written by a committee with both good and bad practice! The very 1st sentence on page 2 comes close to conflating equal pay with pay gaps (see B1 why you must not do this!) and page 5 incorrectly labels pay quarters as “pay quartiles“. The good practice starts with the year on year analyses described on pages 3 & 4 followed by excellent practice on pages 5 & 6 when they talk about Representation Gaps (see link B10 above) and Continuous Improvement (see link E1 above)!
Pay Gap Reporting Guidance from the UK Supreme Court – On 5th April 2017, the UK supreme court handed down what is regarded as the definitive judgement and guide to the law on indirect discrimination. Co-incidentally, this was the same day gender pay gap reporting for employers became mandatory in the UK. It took me years to realise the Supreme Court was in fact writing the first guidance document for employers who wish to measure, analyse and take action on disparities in their workforce. I am currently writing a blog to explain why this is the case but you can read the judgement yourself by clicking on the link. I have also come across this blog on the judgement which may be helpful.

I. Measuring Impact and Trends

How do you know if your actions are having an impact? How should trends be measured and what are they telling you? The articles listed here will help to answer those questions. You will find other useful links in section T as I often write posts on LinkedIn or X/Twitter on what the latest trends are saying.

Did the pay gap narrow in 2019 even though half of employers failed to report? and what about 2020? See link T6 for comments on 2021, T10 for 2022 and T16 for 2023.
Has Pay Gap Reporting narrowed the UK gender pay gap between 2017 & 2021?
When will the gender pay gap disappear in the UK and how the BBC got it wrong? See link T15 as well for a thread on this subject.
Why a smaller gender pay gap is actually the worst possible outcome

J. Judgements from employment tribunals & courts

As I got more involved in the pay gap reporting space, I realised there was much wisdom to be learned relevant to pay gap analytics from decisions made by Employment Tribunals, Courts of Appeal and the Supreme Court. In this section, I link directly to the court judgement itself but sometimes I also write an article about the case. Where I do so, I indicate the relevant weblink. As much as possible, the judgements are listed in chronological order.

All Employment Tribunal Decisions since Feb 2017 – There is a search facility to find specific cases. For cases before Feb 2017, a Google search may find a judgement but it is pot luck.
Essop v Home Office (April 2017) – See link G5 for my comments but this a seminal Supreme Court judgement on how the law should be applied in cases involving indirect discrimination. In my expert witness work, whenever I am instructed on a discrimination case, I am forwarded a copy of this judgement. The Essop case involved an appeal from an Employment Appeal Tribunal case in May 2014 here. In this judgement, the court also considered an appeal from a religious pay gap case Naeem V Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) which is why I say pay gaps can potentially be an indicator of indirect discrimination.
Furlong v Cheshire Police (February 2019) – When employers seek to improve representation of underrepresented categories, the Equality Act 2010 has a provision known as Positive Action which can be used to increase the number of potential candidates to be appointed. Positive discrimination is illegal but where is the boundary between that and positive action? This case is a good demonstration of when positive action becomes positive discrimination and the judgement makes it clear that positive action must be evidenced based and proportionate in its scope.
Stacy Macken V BNP Paribas (August 2019) – This was a notorious Equal Pay case which Macken won after a long fight and I briefly refer to it in links B2 & E8. Stacy was one of two project managers recruited by BNP at the same time but her male comparator was paid substantially more. The tribunal uncovered that the way each was recruited was responsible for the pay disparity even though both were doing the same job. The reason why BNP failed to correct the disparity was their manager had decided Stacy was the junior but this was never communicated to both of his reports and was never reflected in their job titles, job descriptions or the company’s organogram.
Samira Ahmed V BBC (January 2020) – See link B5 for my analysis of this Equal Pay case at employment tribunal. It was a relatively straightforward win for the BBC presenter Samira Ahmed and is a good demonstration of what an employer needs to do in order to defend an equal pay claim.
Bayfield & Jenner V Wundermann Thompson (July 2021) – This a sex discrimination & unfair dismissal case which arose immediately after J.W.Thompson (later bought by Wundermann Thompson) published their first gender pay gap report in 2018 which showed a 45% pay gap. The company held a presentation in May 2018 which was reported in the media and included a slide saying white men needed to be obliterated! Mr Bayfield & Mr Jenner were not at the presentation but heard about it and asked for a meeting with HR to discuss their concerns. The outcome of that meeting was that within in a week they were made redundant and dismissed a few months later. The tribunal found this was unfair dismissal and constituted sex discrimination. It is a textbook example of how not to talk about your pay gaps.
RAF Positive Discrimination Inquiry (April 2023) – In link E5, I explain why closing a pay gap or disparity can take much longer than most employers realise. The risk of not understanding this point is that employers can be tempted to positively discriminate in favour of women & minorities to speed things up. Such discrimination is illegal but here the chief of the RAF ignored warnings from HR that his aspirations to meet diversity targets by 2025 could only be reached with illegal discrimination. The issue only came to light when the most senior female officer in the RAF resigned her commission to blow the whistle. This led to this inquiry and compensation paid out to over 30 white men who had been victims of this discrimination.

M. Miscellaneous

These links cover a wide range of topics related to pay gaps and diversity. Link M5 is a recommended book on statistical thinking.

When is an all-white employer alright? – If the staff at an employer is all white, is that evidence of potential racial discrimination? I show how this question can be answered using one of the many methods available to me as statistical expert witness in discrimination cases at employment tribunals.
7 Articles on pay gap trends I wrote for Practical Law magazine
Do people in the UK know what a gender pay gap is? – This is a survey carried out by YouGov in 2018 which tested people’s understanding of the term “gender pay gap“. It coincided with the publication of the first set of pay gap reports by employers in the UK. It backs up my concerns about public understanding which prompted my article in link B2 above. YouGov asked the question again in 2021 with similar results.
The best format for presenting pay gap statistics – The UK Government Equalities Office (GEO) tested a number of different ways of presenting pay gap information with the general public. The results clearly showed that presenting pay gaps using a “pence in the pound” format was superior to any statistic based on percentages.
“Conned Again, Watson!” by Colin Bruce – Published in 2002, this is my all time favourite book on statistics. What Colin Bruce does is write Sherlock Holmes stories where Holmes is also a statistician as well as a detective. Some stories are little contrived but Bruce has done a great job of capturing the spirit of Conan Doyle’s books as well as illustrating a wide range of statistical and economic concepts. Indeed chapter 11 involves a payroll problem!
Disability Confident Voluntary Reporting Scheme – This is a reporting framework in relation to disability that any employer seeking level 3 accreditation under the UK Disability Confident scheme has to comply with. If combined with pay quarter breakdowns it would be a Disability Pay Gap Reporting framework as I envisaged in link D9 above
How to analyse ethnicity data by the Race Disparity Unit (now part of the Equality Hub) – The RDU published standards on best practice for collecting and analysing ethnicity data. Much of this is highly relevant to ethnicity pay gap analysis. The Royal Statistical Society published this favourable response during the consultation phase.
“I’m not your inspiration!” by Stella Young – A TED talk by this very funny (& sadly deceased) comedienne looking at attitudes to disability. I relate to this strongly as someone who is deafblind.
The 3 definitions of Equal Pay in the UK – Under the Equality Act 2010, an employee must designate a Comparator for Like Work, Equivalent Work or Work of Equal Value when bringing an Equal Pay claim. The links take you to a series of informative articles written by Alex Harper, an employment lawyer.
Do pay gaps measure equal pay? The Australian version – This youtube video of an exchange between an Australian senator and the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) is a perfect demonstration of why the term pay gap causes such confusion. In this LinkedIn post, Anthony Horrigan of Spktral provides an alternative transcript of what should have been said.
Statistics for HR Analytics by Gabriella Debreczeni – This is very useful series of LinkedIn articles explaining how statistical methods can be used to analyse HR data. Part 1 looks at testing differences between observed & expected demographic profiles, Part 2 uses the Chi-Squared test to assess likelihood of employees leaving.

P. My Podcasts, Presentations, Interviews & Videos on pay gaps and diversity

Here you can watch me, listen to me or read what I have to say about pay gaps in a public setting. Many of these are already linked in some of the links above.

June 2019 – My evidence to the Treasury Select Committee on effectiveness of gender pay gap reporting – more information can be found in link D4 above.
September 2019 – My presentation to the Royal Statistical Society Conference in Belfast on the 10 recommendations of the RSS to improve pay gap reporting – more information can be found in link D2 above.
August 2020 – My interview about gender pay gap reporting with Corinne Carr on her Paying for Good podcast channel.
June 2021 – My presentation about why gender swap numbers are superior in a webinar hosted by the Economic Statistics Working Group – my talk starts 42 mins in and more information can be found in links B11 & D9 above.
December 2021 – My interview about ethnicity pay gap reporting with Corinne Carr on her Paying for Good podcast channel.
April 2022 – I‘m quoted in this Times article looking at pay gap trends up to 2021. I expand on this in tweet T8 below.
October 2022 – My call to my fellow statisticians to help their HR colleagues with their pay gap analysis! This was a webinar hosted by the Busines & Industry Section of the Royal Statistical Society. The link takes you to the slides used.
Feb 2024 & Feb 2025 – People! Not Percentages! Ethnicity Pay Gap Summit 9th Feb 2024 A step by step explanation of why pay quarter breakdown by ethnicity are actionable statistics and builds on links D14 & D15. Moving From Insights To Meaningful Action – Ethnicity Pay Gap Summit – 7th Feb 2025. Using only counts of people, one percentage and one mathematical calculation, I explain how employers can interpret their to identify where to focus their efforts, how long progress will take and how they will know when they have reached statistical equality.
September 2025 – My presentation to the Royal Statistical Society conference in Edinburgh. I discussed the 9 statistical & data challenges I wrote about in my recent briefing note (see link D16) for the government’s consultation on whether ethnicity & disability pay gap reporting should be made mandatory. I was followed by Dr Charles Cadogan of the University of Leicester who talked about how companies disclose and use their pay gap data in their corporate reports.
October 2025 – A recording of my presentation to AFBE (Association for Black Engineers). This built on my Feb 2025 presentation at the EPG summit above and provided a number of practical tools to turn your ethnicity pay gap data into insights, actions and impact. The event starts 7 minutes into the recording.
October 2025 – A Youtube recording of my presentation to CMI (Chartered Management Institute). I talk about the different definitions of gender equality that employers could use to set goals and identify actions (see link E8 above). I was the first of two speakers in an event which lasted an hour and my talks begins at timestamp 00:04:15 and lasts for 18 minutes. I was followed by Kristal McNamara of Merop Consulting who focused on three employers in the South West as case studies.

T. My tweets & LinkedIn posts on pay gaps and diversity

I comment on pay gaps & diversity on my Twitter account and LinkedIn feed. Some notable tweets & posts are listed here.

My complaint about comments made by the head of the TUC on the 2018 pay gap.
Some observations on the government’s guidance to producing gender pay gap statistics and the numerous deficiencies in these.
My comments on why incorrect gender pay gap data is being submitted.
At last, the BBC publishes a good article on gender pay gaps!
Why are the French surprised? My comments on why the fine for having too many women was predictable.
My comments on the 2021 ONS ASHE report on gender pay gaps
I mark Ethnicity Pay Gap Day 2022 with a long twitter thread and a LinkedIn article to summarise 8 blogs on ethnicity pay gap reporting. I updated these threads in Jan 2023.
My initial comments on the 5 year trend in gender pay gaps between 2017 & 2021
My observations on the Conservative Party being a high profile case study for closing ethnicity & gender pay gaps
My expectations ahead of the 2022 ONS ASHE report on gender pay gaps. The last tweet includes a link to the actual figures for 2022.
My initial observations on the 2021 ONS Census data by ethnicity for England & Wales.
More and more employers are reporting their pay gap data early despite some stats appearing to show otherwise.
I explain why an academic study which claims unequal pay accounts for half of the gender pay gap is misleading.
On International Women’s Day 2023, I explain in detail how the median gender pay gap statistic is calculated (& on LinkedIn as well)
My initial observations on the UK gender pay gap trend between 2017 & 2022 and how the BBC got it wrong (not for the first time!)
Was 2023 when UK employers got to grips with the pay gap? I summarise the immediate 2023 GPGR data after the reporting deadline and follow up with an X/Twitter thread highlighting some of the key features.
I explain why in a league table of tech firms based on their gender pay gap, the company at the bottom was better than the company at the top. The last tweet of that X/Twitter thread links to a similar post in LinkedIn which foreshadows what I wrote about in link B15 above.

V. Archived material

I consider these articles to be out of date or superseded by another.

If you would like to book a training course in Pay Gap Analytics, then please contact me.

For more information about my other training courses in statistics, please visit my Statistical Training homepage.

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