Pay Gaps

Stats Training Materials – Pay Gap Analytics

October 1, 2025 By Nigel

*** Updated with links 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.

Pay Gaps #32 – My Response to the Ethnicity & Disability Pay Gap Reporting Consultation

June 9, 2025 By Nigel

The government’s consultation on whether ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting should be made mandatory for large employers has now closed. I submitted a response in my capacity as a professional statistician with 7 years experience of helping employers to get to grips with pay gap reporting. My response was in two parts, a briefing note of the 9 statistical challenges that have to be confronted for a workable reporting system to be introduced and my answers to the 33 questions posed by the government in their consultation.

*** This post was updated on 9th June 2025 with links to my final response. Links to my draft response can be found at the end of this post. ***

Pay Gaps #31 – When is Equal Pay Day in 2024?

November 23, 2024 By Nigel

When is #EqualPayDay in the UK in 2024?

No-one knows is the correct answer. That’s because there are no national measurements of the extent of unequal pay in the UK e.g. a woman being paid less than a man for the doing the same job.

If you see anyone talking about “Equal Pay Day“, they are in fact talking about #GenderPayGapDay, the day on which the typical women “starts working for free” when compared with the typical man irrespective of what job they are doing. Of course, as everyone knows, gender pay gaps do not measure the extent of unequal pay in any shape or form.

For 2024, the ONS (Office of National Statistics) has published 30 different gender pay gap statistics. This means we could have 30 different gender pay gap days so how do we decide which one to use?

Pay Gaps #30 – Why Disability Confident is the Template for Mandatory Ethnicity Pay Gap Reporting

February 3, 2024 By Nigel

In July 2023, the UK government’s finally published its response to its 2018 consultation on whether #ethnicity #paygap #reporting should be made mandatory for UK employers. A number of paragraphs from this response were quoted in an article published at the time in The Voice newspaper.

I want to go through two of those paragraphs because they highlight what is wrong with the current debate. I think the debate can be reset in a more productive direction if campaigners and the government were to focus on Action 71 of the Inclusive Britain action plan instead of Action 16. In short, those who wish to implement mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting should use existing Disability Confident reporting scheme as a template to build on and not copy and paste Gender Pay Gap Reporting.

Pay Gaps #29 – Government Guidance on Ethnicity Pay Gap Reporting – My thoughts

June 14, 2023 By Nigel

Two months ago, the Department for Business & Trade (DfB&T) in collaboration with the Equality Hub (EqHub) and Race Disparity Unit (RDU) published Ethnicity pay reporting: guidance for employers. This is “guidance for employers on how to measure, report on and address any ethnicity pay differences within their workforce” and fulfills Action 16 of the government’s Inclusive Britain action plan. I was asked to write the draft version of this guidance and I have to confess to being disappointed with the final version published. I will explain why I am disappointed and why I have decided to publish an edited version of my draft as well.

Pay Gaps #28 – Does the NHS Harm Gender Equality?

February 17, 2023 By Nigel

“We’re committed to Gender Equality!”

As we approach International Women’s Day next month, expect to see more and more employers saying something like this in their PR. It’s an easy statement to make but what does Gender Equality mean to them and you? To encourage employers to be clearer on what this means for them, I want to explore 6 possible definitions. Along the way, I show some definitions of gender equality in the UK are out of reach unless half a million women working for the NHS (National Health Service) are replaced by men.

Pay Gaps #27 – Don’t mention the Disability Pay Gap!

June 11, 2022 By Nigel

“I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it!”

Basil Fawlty didn’t get away with it in Torquay and neither did this manager.

HR Manager – “Our disability pay gap is zero which surprises me”

Me – “How many disabled employees do you have?”

My response sums up my view on Disability Pay Gap Reporting (DPGR). The manager commented on their pay gap whilst I queried their employment gap. As a statistician who happens to be disabled, I consider the conventional disability pay gap statistic to be at best irrelevant and at worse a lie.

Pay Gaps #26 – Why are female dominated public sector gender pay gaps so large?

May 26, 2022 By Nigel

… & why are gender pay gaps so small at male dominated private sector employers?

When I asked people recently who on average had the larger gender pay gap, the results were –

62% said female dominated (>80% employees are women) public sector (snapshot date 31st March) employers. There were 420 such employers in April 2021 who reported their UK gender pay gap.
38% said male dominated (>80% employees are men) private sector (snapshot date 5th April) employers. There were 1584 such employers in April 2021 who reported their UK gender pay gap.

The majority are correct. In April 2021, for every £1 paid to the average man, the average woman was paid 90p at the average male dominated private sector employer and 77p at the average female dominated public sector employer. For context, the average woman at the average employer in the finance sector (who are often in the news for having large pay gaps) is paid 75p.

Pay Gaps #25B – House of Lords’s debate on Ethnicity Pay Gaps – My thoughts

November 9, 2021 By Nigel

Is pay gap reporting about transparency or accountability? This was the main theme of the House of Lords debate on Ethnicity Pay Gap Reporting (EPGR) on 25th October 2021, unlike the Commons debate that preceded it in September. The 9 peers who spoke could be split between those who see EPGR as an exercise in employer transparency and those who see EPGR as an exercise in employer accountability and I consider this to be a fundamental question that has not yet been answered. In this article, I will discuss the implications of both answers to this question for any future EPGR legislation.

Pay Gaps #25A – House of Common’s debate on Ethnicity Pay Gaps – My thoughts

September 27, 2021 By Nigel

The UK Parliament debated Ethnicity Pay Gap Reporting (EPGR) on 20th September 2021 in Westminster Hall. Seven MPs spoke in the hour long debate and, as debates go, I thought it was actually quite good. There was cross party consensus on the merits of EPGR but I saw a divide between those who recognise EPGR is complex and requires trade offs and those who think the complexities of EPGR can be solved with government guidance.