{"id":7056,"date":"2026-11-08T00:44:42","date_gmt":"2026-11-08T00:44:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/?p=7056"},"modified":"2026-11-09T00:21:53","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T00:21:53","slug":"when-is-equal-pay-day-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/when-is-equal-pay-day-in-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Pay Gaps #31B – When is Equal Pay Day in 2026?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When is #EqualPayDay<\/strong> in the UK in 2026?<\/p>\n

No-one knows is the correct answer.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

If you see anyone talking about “Equal Pay Day<\/em><\/span>“, they are in fact talking about #GenderPayGapDay<\/strong><\/span>, the day on which the typical women “starts working for free”<\/span><\/em> when compared with the typical man irrespective of what job they are doing.\u00a0 Of course, as everyone knows, gender pay gaps do not and cannot measure the extent of unequal pay in any shape or form<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For 2026, the ONS<\/strong> <\/span>(Office of National Statistics) has published 30<\/strong> different gender pay gap statistics<\/a>.\u00a0 This means we could have 30<\/strong> different gender pay gap days\u00a0so how do we decide which one to use?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Where to find 30 gender pay gaps<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

ONS<\/strong><\/span> use their ASHE<\/strong><\/span> (Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings<\/strong>) to estimate pay by sex as of April 5th of each year.\u00a0 For more details on ASHE<\/strong><\/span>, please read my article “Are we there yet?<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/span>”<\/p>\n

These estimates are normally published at the end of October of each year in three places –<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Gender Pay Gap in the UK<\/strong><\/a> – this is an annual report showing some of the 30<\/strong> pay gap statistics broken down by a variety of categories.\u00a0 The most common pay gap quoted is based on median hourly pay excluding overtime.\u00a0 However, this report only links to a data download for the pay gap percentages here<\/a>, not the pay figures by sex used to calculate the pay gap.<\/li>\n
  2. Pay & Hours Data by Sex<\/a><\/strong> – here you can download a zipped file of spreadsheets containing the data used to calculate the 30<\/strong> provisional<\/strong> <\/span>pay gap statistics in 2026<\/strong> only. The same link also allows you to download separate zipped files for the provisional 2025<\/strong><\/span> pay gap stats and the final revised 2025<\/strong><\/span> pay gap stats and for earlier years going back to 1997.\n