Equal pay: can colleagues be paid differently?

If a colleague is paid more, you have the right to check whether the difference is lawful. Today, save your payslip, note the colleague’s job and duties, and write down the pay term that looks lower. In Great Britain, equal pay law compares contractual terms for equal work with a real person of the opposite sex. You do not need to prove motive before asking questions.

Can colleagues be paid differently?

Yes. Different skills, shifts or responsibilities can justify different pay. Paying someone less because she is a woman or he is a man cannot. In care, compare sleep-in duties and travel between visits; in hospitality, check tips and tronc; in retail and warehouses, compare the actual job rather than labels or grades alone.

Section 66 of the Equality Act 2010 supplies a sex equality clause where someone does equal work to a qualifying opposite-sex comparator. It covers employees, apprentices and workers contracted personally to do the work, including qualifying agency workers and some people described as self-employed. A genuinely independent business without a personal-service obligation is outside this protection. No minimum service or written equal pay clause is needed.

The comparison is term by term. Pay is compared with pay, leave with leave, car allowance with car allowance. An employer cannot answer a £6,000 shortfall in basic pay by pointing to a more generous bonus. If a pay difference concerns disability, race or age rather than sex, the discrimination rules may apply instead.

What counts as “equal work”?

Job titles do not decide it. The work itself does. Section 65 gives three routes, and you need only one:

Equal value allows a comparison between very different jobs. A tribunal may need an independent expert to assess their demands. The absence of a job evaluation scheme does not prevent a claim; where a scheme exists, its validity and findings matter. Job titles alone never establish equal work. See the Acas guide to equal pay and the law.

Covered terms go well beyond basic salary: contractual bonuses, overtime, sick pay, holiday pay, working hours, annual leave, redundancy pay and benefits such as a company car. Occupational pensions have a related sex equality rule. Non-contractual payments can engage the sex discrimination provisions instead.

Who can you compare yourself with?

Your comparator must be a real person of the opposite sex doing equal work. You can use more than one comparator, and they need not still work there: a predecessor may qualify. A successor’s higher salary is not automatically a basis for recovering pay for a period before they arrived.

Section 79 permits comparisons with someone employed by the same or an associated employer at the same establishment, or at another establishment where common terms apply. Employers are associated where one company controls the other, or a third controls both.

There are also routes where a single body sets or maintains both people’s terms and can ensure equal treatment, or where the same collective agreement governs their terms. These provisions have been explicit in section 79 since 1 January 2024. Working for different companies is therefore not always a bar, but neither a group structure nor an outsourcing arrangement guarantees a valid comparison. Get advice on who controls the terms.

You do not need to prove a discriminatory motive before raising an equal pay issue. Establish the worse term, a qualifying comparator and equal work; the employer must then make out its defence. If no actual comparator is available, a sex discrimination claim may still be possible, including through a hypothetical comparison where the law permits it.

When is different pay lawful?

Once the comparison is established, the employer must prove a material factor that genuinely caused the difference. Under section 69, direct sex discrimination cannot be justified. A factor that causes particular disadvantage to one sex must be objectively justified.

Possible factors include a scarcity premium for a hard-to-recruit skill, relevant qualifications, location allowances and unsocial-hours payments. Length of service and performance-related progression can also qualify. None is an automatic defence: the factor must explain the actual difference, not provide a convenient explanation invented afterwards.

If a pay policy particularly disadvantages one sex, the employer must show that it is a proportionate way of achieving a legitimate aim. For example, a performance scheme that disadvantages women because of how it treats maternity absence needs scrutiny. Where a lawful factor explains only part of the gap, the unexplained remainder must still close.

Our view: treating “the market rate” as a loophole for inherited pay differences benefits employers, not the people doing the work. A label is not evidence; the employer still has to prove the factor actually caused the gap.

In August 2024, more than 3,500 mainly female Next shop workers won a six-year equal-pay claim comparing sales consultants with warehouse staff. The tribunal rejected “market rates”; Next faced more than £30m in back pay. BBC News reported the decision.

What about disability, race or age?

The sex equality clause does not provide a race, disability or age-based equal pay claim. But that does not leave discriminatory underpayment lawful. A disabled or Black worker may have a discrimination claim and, if the facts also support an opposite-sex comparison, an equal pay claim too.

The discrimination routes under the Equality Act 2010 include direct discrimination (section 13), indirect discrimination (section 19), discrimination arising from disability (section 15) and failure to make reasonable adjustments. Their tests differ from the equal-work test. Compensation can include financial loss and injury to feelings; there is no automatic six-year arrears formula.

For example, a bonus rule penalising disability-related absence may raise discrimination-arising-from-disability and adjustment issues. The employer’s justification and the adjustments reasonably required matter. It is not enough merely to show that two colleagues receive different amounts.

Part-time, fixed-term and agency staff

Separate rules address disadvantage because you work part-time, have a fixed-term contract or work through an agency. They can overlap with equal pay or discrimination claims.

Take a comparable part-timer paid £12,600 a year for 20 hours a week where the full-timer earns £28,000 for 40 hours. Pro-rata salary is £14,000. The £1,400 shortfall is 10% below that figure and needs objective justification. See part-time rights, fixed-term contracts and agency worker rights.

Can your employer stop you asking what colleagues earn?

Section 77 protects “relevant pay disclosures”: discussions aimed at finding out whether pay differences are connected to a protected characteristic. A contract cannot prevent or restrict those disclosures, and retaliation for making or seeking one is victimisation.

This is not a general licence to circulate other people’s payroll records. Ordinary confidentiality rules can still matter outside the protected discussion. Nor does the right force a colleague to tell you their salary. Ask with their consent and keep the comparison focused on discrimination.

Equal pay is not the pay gap

An equal pay claim tests contractual terms between individuals doing equal work. A gender pay gap report measures the difference between men’s and women’s average pay across an organisation. A reported gap is not, on its own, proof of unlawful pay.

A firm can have a large gap without breaching equal pay law, for example because men occupy more senior roles while comparable terms are equal. That explanation still deserves scrutiny: grade-for-grade equality does not rule out undervaluing different jobs of equal value. Conversely, a near-zero organisational gap can conceal an individual breach.

The usual snapshot date is 5 April for private and voluntary employers, with publication due by 4 April the following year. Relevant public authorities use 31 March and 30 March respectively. The reports include hourly-pay gaps, bonus gaps, bonus receipt and pay quartiles. See GOV.UK reporting dates and our reporting guide.

For national context, the ONS provisional estimate of the median full-time hourly gender pay gap, excluding overtime, was 6.9% in April 2025. That is a full-time measure, not the all-employee gap or an equal pay statistic.

Claiming equal pay: deadlines, arrears and what you win

1. Save the evidence. Keep your contract, payslips, rota and job description. Note the comparator’s duties, hours and the term that differs. Care workers can note travel time; shop and warehouse workers, grades and allowances.
2. Ask in writing. Request the pay criteria and an explanation. You may ask colleagues about pay to check for discrimination; nobody has to disclose their salary.
3. Get backup and protect the date. Contact USDAW (retail), Unite or GMB (hospitality, food, logistics), UNISON (care and health), or IWGB (delivery and cleaning). Notify Acas for early conciliation before most tribunal claims. Settlement talks are voluntary; timely notification pauses the clock, a grievance does not.
4. Check the deadline and get advice. A standard equal pay claim is due six months minus one day after employment ends. Special rules cover stable working relationships, concealment and incapacity; armed forces cases have a nine-month period. Ask Citizens Advice, a law centre or your union to check the date. To present a claim, establish unequal terms, equal work and a qualifying comparator; see our tribunal procedure guide.

For advice, contact Citizens Advice, a law centre or your union. Minimum-wage underpayment is wage theft: report it to HMRC. Report suspected forced labour or trafficking to the GLAA, unsafe conditions to the HSE, and use the EHRC equal-pay code. None of these replaces the Acas deadline.

A successful claim can establish the improved contractual entitlement and recover arrears. The usual recovery period reaches back six years before proceedings in England and Wales, or five years in Scotland, under section 132. Special concealment or incapacity rules, and Scottish fraud or error rules, can alter the period. You recover the proven loss, not automatically the maximum number of years. Equal pay arrears do not themselves include an injury-to-feelings award.

A tribunal finding an equal pay breach must normally order an audit under the Equal Pay Audits Regulations 2014. Exceptions include a recent audit containing the required information, an isolated breach giving no reason to suspect others, or disadvantages outweighing benefits. The temporary micro-business and new-business exemptions ended in October 2024; a small workforce is not now an automatic exemption.

Maternity-related pay has separate protection. The maternity equality clause can require a pay rise awarded during the relevant period to be reflected in maternity pay, including recalculation where required. See our maternity leave and pay guide.

If you have missed the tribunal limit, seek specialist advice immediately rather than assuming every route is closed. Civil-court proceedings may be possible, but their jurisdiction and limitation rules need individual advice.

Scotland and Northern Ireland: what differs?

Scotland applies the same Equality Act equal pay provisions, with the usual five-year arrears period. Its listed public authorities also have specific reporting duties with a 20-employee threshold: gender pay gap information every two years and equal pay statements every four years, subject to the authority’s reporting cycle and workforce rules. Statements cover sex and, from the second statement, disability and race, plus occupational segregation. These duties do not create individual race or disability equal-value claims.

Northern Ireland has its own equal pay and sex discrimination framework, principally the Equal Pay Act (Northern Ireland) 1970 and Sex Discrimination (Northern Ireland) Order 1976. The Equality Act 2010 regime described above does not apply. Claims go to Industrial Tribunals; seek advice from the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland and the Labour Relations Agency on local deadlines and procedures.

The GB gender pay reporting rules do not extend to Northern Ireland. Its Department for Communities has consulted on a separate reporting regime; a consultation is not proof that a duty has commenced. Do not import the GB threshold or deadlines into NI compliance advice. The GB reforms below do not change NI claim limits. See employment law in Northern Ireland.

What is changing?

The core sex equality clause remains. The Employment Rights Act 2025 changes some surrounding rules; a separate consultation proposes further reform. The distinction matters if you are deciding when and how to claim.

1. 6 Apr 2026Voluntary action plans

   Employers of all sizes can voluntarily publish gender pay gap and menopause action plans. This is not yet a mandatory action-plan duty.

2. 1 Oct 2026Longer discrimination claim limits in force

   The normal limit for most tribunal claims, including pay discrimination, becomes six months minus one day for problems occurring from this date. Earlier acts may remain under the old limit. The dedicated equal pay period was already six months and is unchanged.