Employment Tribunals have ordered just one equal pay audit to date, according to the government’s July 2026 equal pay consultation. So if you’re running one, it’s almost certainly your choice.
That puts you in control of the scope, the timing and who sees the findings. Pulling the numbers together is the quicker part; deciding what to do about each gap takes longer, so that’s where I’ll focus.
Equal pay audits in summary
An equal pay audit checks whether men and women doing equal work get equal pay, and finds the reason behind every gap. For most UK employers it’s voluntary, unless a tribunal finds an equal pay breach and orders one. The short version:
- Equal work covers like work, work rated as equivalent and work of equal value.
- Every gap ends up explained, justified or fixed.
- Market pay evidence can back up a reason; the legal test decides.
- Fixing a gap means a new rate, a costed plan and legal advice on back pay.
So, what is an equal pay audit?
An equal pay audit means comparing what you pay men and women who do equal work, role by role and person by person, and finding out why any difference exists. It’s a different job from gender pay gap reporting, which looks at average pay across your whole workforce and can hide a problem in one team.
Are equal pay audits mandatory in the UK?
For most UK employers, equal pay audits are voluntary. If an Employment Tribunal finds an equal pay breach, it has to order one unless you’ve done a compliant audit in the last three years, the consultation document explains.
Two things make this a good year to audit anyway. First, employers with 250+ staff can publish a voluntary action plan on their gender pay gap and menopause support. Those plans become mandatory from spring 2027, “subject to legislation”, the government’s action plan guidance says.
Second, the consultation proposes extending equal pay rights to ethnic minority and disabled people. An audit now gives you a baseline either way.
How to run an equal pay audit in four steps
Step 1: Decide the scope
Settle who’s in and what counts as pay: basic pay, bonuses, overtime, allowances and benefits. You can audit everyone or start with the area that worries you most.
Sex is the legal baseline, but I’d add ethnicity and disability now. And talk to your employment lawyer first, because running it under legal professional privilege changes who gets to see the findings.
Step 2: Work out who is doing equal work
Under the Equality Act 2010, equal work means like-for-like work, work rated as equivalent under a valid job evaluation scheme, or work of equal value. The work being done decides it, so a “coordinator” in one team can be doing equal work to a “manager” in another.
Compare effort, skill, decision-making and responsibility. If two very different roles might be of equal value, take legal advice.
Step 3: Collect and compare the pay data
Pull pay for everyone in scope on one date, as hourly rates so part-timers compare fairly. Then compare men’s and women’s pay within each equal work group, element by element.
A gap of 5% or more, or a recurring gap of 3% or more, is worth investigating, according to the EHRC’s audit guidance. In groups of one or two people, look at the individuals, because one unexplained gap still counts. This is where having clean, consistent HR data can pay dividends.
Step 4: Find the cause of every gap
Trace how each gap happened: starting salaries, promotions, pay review awards, bonuses and any market premium, plus who signed each one off and on what evidence.
Write the cause down with the paperwork that backs it, because a reason with no paperwork from the time is much harder to defend.
What to do with your equal pay audit results
Equal pay audit results only become useful once you’ve sorted every gap into one of three groups: explained, justified by a material factor, or unexplained. Work from the cause log you built in step 4, because each group needs different evidence and a different next move.
| Outcome | What it means | What to do next |
|---|---|---|
| Explained | The gap disappears on checking: a data error, unadjusted part-time pay or different work | Fix the data and note what you checked |
| Material factor | Equal work, with a genuine reason other than sex | Document the reason and evidence, check it against section 69 and set a review date |
| Unexplained | Equal work, still unexplained after you investigate | Set a corrected rate, cost it and get advice on back pay |
For gaps between grades or teams, HR Datahub’s guide to pay equity analysis and achieving fair pay covers the wider check. Also, check out this online guide for benchmarking salaries accurately.
Fixing an unexplained gap
Close the gap by raising the lower pay to at least the comparator’s rate. Live pay evidence for that role, level and location tells you whether the corrected rate should go higher still.
Cost it before it goes to the board, back pay included, and check with your lawyer before phasing it over several pay reviews, because the gap keeps running until it closes.
It’s an expensive thing to get wrong. Birmingham City Council’s 2024/25 statement of accounts carries an estimated equal pay provision of £404.0m, following a settlement with the trade unions in October 2025.
Asda has been served with about 58,000 equal value claims in the employment tribunal, its parent company’s 2025 annual report states, listing them as a contingent liability.
Cezanne’s compensation planning module has built-in pay equity features for monitoring fairness, so each decision and its evidence sit together for the next pay review.
Documenting a material factor
A material factor is a genuine reason, other than sex, for paying someone more for equal work. If it disadvantages one sex, section 69 of the Equality Act 2010 requires it to be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.
The September 2026 Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) decision in the Next case accepted that paying warehouse staff more to recruit and retain them was a legitimate aim. The final outcome is still to come.
Record the reason for any premium and supporting evidence, such as vacancy, turnover and market pay data. Section 69 decides whether the reason stands.
Sharing the results with staff and the board
Your board needs the gaps by outcome, the cost of fixing them and a timetable. Staff need a short, plain summary, checked with your lawyer if the audit ran under privilege.
Just under a third of organisations (32%) had run an equal pay audit in the previous 12 months, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) found. Across all organisations surveyed, 19% shared the results with employees and 13% kept them internal.
Plenty of teams are still getting ready for that. For example, 85% of UK reward and HR professionals surveyed for HR Datahub’s UK Pay Transparency Readiness Report aren’t fully prepared for salary visibility. Meanwhile, Cezanne’s own pay transparency research discovered nearly nine in ten HR professionals believe employees now expect genuine clarity around pay.
Common equal pay audit mistakes
The equal pay audit mistakes I’d watch for mostly happen around the analysis itself, in the planning and the follow-through. Each of these is far cheaper to sort out at the start than to fix once a claim has landed:
- Auditing without a budget to act: Agree up front how you’ll pay for fixes.
- Running it apart from your action plan: With 250 or more staff, the same findings can feed your equality action plan.
- Treating the market rate as the answer: It only counts if it drove the pay decision at the time.
- Filing it and moving on: Re-audit every few years and check last time’s actions happened.
An equal pay audit earns its keep in the weeks after the analysis. Sort every gap, fix the unexplained ones and write down the reasons behind the rest.
If I had to pick one habit, it’d be recording the reason for every pay decision when you make it. Then the next tribunal question, board challenge or pay review starts from evidence you already hold
Frequently asked questions about equal pay audits
Can two employees doing the same job be paid differently?
Yes, two employees doing the same job can be paid differently in the UK, as long as a genuine reason other than sex explains it and you can evidence that reason. The test is equal work, judged on what each person actually does, so the material factor section above is the one to read.
How far back can equal pay claims go?
Equal pay claims can reach back up to six years before the claim was brought in England and Wales, or five in Scotland, according to government research on pay discrimination. So a gap left running builds a bigger back pay bill every year.
The time limit for an equal pay claim is generally six months from the last day of employment, the consultation document says.
What are the rules for equal pay in the UK?
The rules for equal pay in Great Britain come from the equal pay chapter of the Equality Act 2010; Northern Ireland has its own equal pay law. A woman doing equal work to a male comparator at the same or an associated employer is entitled to terms at least as good as his, and the reverse applies too. The rules cover every employer, whatever its size.
Frequently asked questions about running an equal pay audit
Can two employees doing the same job be paid differently?
Yes, two employees doing the same job can be paid differently in the UK, as long as a genuine reason other than sex explains it and you can evidence that reason. The test is equal work, judged on what each person actually does, so the material factor section above is the one to read.
How far back can equal pay claims go?
Equal pay claims can reach back up to six years before the claim was brought in England and Wales, or five in Scotland, according to government research on pay discrimination. So a gap left running builds a bigger back pay bill every year.
The time limit for an equal pay claim is generally six months from the last day of employment, the consultation document says.
What are the rules for equal pay in the UK?
The rules for equal pay in Great Britain come from the equal pay chapter of the Equality Act 2010; Northern Ireland has its own equal pay law. A woman doing equal work to a male comparator at the same or an associated employer is entitled to terms at least as good as his, and the reverse applies too. The rules cover every employer, whatever its size.
About the author
David Whitfield is co-founder of HR Datahub, a live pay evidence platform for UK HR and reward teams, built on 40 million+ job postings. He writes HR Datahub’s guides on pay equity and job levelling. Connect with David on LinkedIn.
