Equality audits: what must employers measure?

If work treats you unfairly, you do not need to wait for an equality audit. Write down what happened, when, who was there and how shifts, pay or treatment differed. Your employer may not have to run a general audit, but specific reporting duties still apply. Here is what must be measured, what the figures can hide, and where to take the next step.

Mandatory duties, voluntary audits

An equality audit examines recruitment, pay, promotion, training, adjustments and workplace treatment. There is no universal statutory checklist. The compulsory duties below require particular publications, regulatory returns or assessments before public-sector decisions. A small employer outside the reporting thresholds still has to obey discrimination law.

Gender pay gap: the six figures you must report

The Gender Pay Gap Information Regulations 2017 have applied since 6 April 2017. Covered private and voluntary-sector employers with at least 250 employees on 5 April must report by 4 April the following year. Listed public authorities under the England and cross-border regulations use 31 March and report by 30 March the following year. Devolved Scottish and Welsh authorities have separate duties.

Who counts towards 250?

Count people, not full-time equivalents. Each part-timer and job-sharer counts as one. Include apprentices, casual and zero-hours staff who are employees on the snapshot date, and self-employed people contracted to do the work personally. Agency workers count for their agency, not the business where they work. Profit-sharing partners are excluded; salaried partners and LLP members treated as employees for payroll count towards headcount but are excluded from the pay calculations.

Apply the threshold separately to each legal entity. Employers outside Great Britain, including in Northern Ireland, can have duties for employment covered by British law. Consult the government’s headcount guidance for cross-border and contractor cases.

Someone on reduced pay because of leave still counts towards headcount and bonus calculations, including mean and median bonus gaps. Hourly pay gaps and quartiles use full-pay relevant employees instead. Bonus reporting covers the 12 months ending on the snapshot date.

What must the report contain?

The six required measures are mean and median hourly pay gaps, mean and median bonus gaps, the percentage of men and women receiving a bonus, and the percentage of men and women in each pay quartile. A positive gap means the women’s figure is lower than the men’s; a negative gap means it is higher.

Publish on the employer’s website and the GOV.UK gender pay gap service, and keep the website figures available for three years. Private and voluntary-sector employers must include a statement confirming accuracy, signed by an appropriate senior person. That signed-statement requirement does not apply to public authorities reporting under the 31 March regime.

Public sector: equality information and impact assessments

Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 requires public authorities, and other bodies when exercising public functions, to have due regard to eliminating unlawful discrimination, advancing equality of opportunity and promoting good relations. This covers service users as well as workers.

England has no general statutory requirement for a document called an equality impact assessment, or EqIA. It requires proper equality consideration before decisions. The EHRC’s guidance explains the evidence-based approach. Completing a form alone does not establish compliance.

Listed England and cross-border authorities must publish annual compliance information, including employee information at 150 or more employees. Below 150, only that employee-information requirement is waived. The general duty and annual compliance publication remain. At least one specific, measurable equality objective must be published at intervals of no more than four years. The EHRC can enforce these specific duties.

How to carry out an equality impact assessment

1. Define the decision. Identify the proposed policy or service change, the decision-maker and people affected.
2. Gather evidence. Use workforce and service data, complaints and consultation. Missing data is not proof of no impact.
3. Assess different groups. Consider relevant protected characteristics and how disadvantages combine.
4. Compare alternatives. Examine ways to avoid disadvantage or advance equality.
5. Record and review. Give the decision-maker the findings before approval. Record reasons, publish where required and monitor actual effects.

Scotland goes further

The Scottish specific duties require listed authorities to assess new or revised policies where necessary, publish results and review existing policies. Annual workforce composition, recruitment, development and retention data must be gathered and used to improve equality. There is no headcount threshold. Publication forms part of the mainstreaming report, due at least every two years.

At 20 or more employees, listed authorities must publish a mean hourly gender pay gap at least every two years on the statutory 30 April cycle. An equal pay statement and occupational segregation information covering sex, disability and race are due at least every four years. Equality outcomes also run on a four-year cycle, with biennial progress reports. These are listed-authority duties, not rules for every Scottish employer.

Wales: its own annual data duty

Under the Welsh specific duties, listed authorities must arrange to assess proposed policies, publish assessment reports where the impact is substantial and monitor policies already in operation. There is no employee threshold for the annual employment-information duty.

The breakdowns differ. Regulation 9 requires workforce numbers by job, grade, pay, contract type and working pattern to be broken down by sex. Overall employee numbers, applicants, internal moves, training applications and completion, grievances, disciplinary proceedings and leavers must be reported by protected characteristic. Authorities cannot use this regulation to compel employees or applicants to disclose information. Pay-difference action plans and a Strategic Equality Plan are further requirements.

Northern Ireland plays by different rules

The Equality Act 2010 is not Northern Ireland’s workplace discrimination framework. Fair employment monitoring operates under the Fair Employment and Treatment Order 1998 and the Monitoring Regulations.

A private employer with 11 or more Northern Ireland employees normally working at least 16 hours a week must apply to register with the Equality Commission within one month. Registered employers monitor community background and sex, submit annual returns and conduct Article 55 reviews of workforce composition and employment practices at least every three years. A shop growing from eight to 12 staff on 20-hour weeks must apply.

Monitoring covers employees and applicants, with a limited first-return exception. Article 52 adds leaver reporting for specified public authorities and private concerns with more than 250 employees; the regulations also require those employers to report promotions. Use the Commission’s prescribed process.

Designated public authorities have separate section 75 duties and Commission-approved equality schemes. Policy screening identifies proposals needing a full EQIA. Disability duties also apply. These are not Great Britain’s section 149 rules. See our Northern Ireland guide.

Running a voluntary audit that is worth the effort

A useful voluntary audit follows decisions as well as demographics. The free Acas monitoring form is a starting point for collecting information. Decide what you need to learn before asking staff to disclose it. In care, check paid travel between visits and sleep-in shifts; in hospitality and retail, check tips, trial shifts and rota cuts; in warehouses and delivery, check targets, adjustments and access to promotion; in cleaning and health, check night-shift rules and whether workers can attend training. Wage theft and discrimination do not disappear because a spreadsheet has no column for them.

1. Compare people at each stage. Examine applicants, shortlists, hires, starting pay, promotions, training, grievances, disciplinary cases and leavers. Break down relevant characteristics, grade, contract, location and working pattern where data protection allows. Record response rates and compare proportions.
2. Check policies on a shift. Can cleaners attend office-hours training? Can carers request flexible working? Examine recruitment, parental and menopause support, adjustments and complaint routes against practice.
3. Review actual decisions. Sample shortlists, pay offers, bonuses and performance ratings against the stated criteria. Include agency and contract workers where relevant, even though agency staff do not count towards the host’s pay gap report.
4. Ask workers and act. Use voluntary surveys and confidential discussions with staff and union representatives. Do not promise anonymity you cannot deliver. Agree changes, responsibilities and a review date.

If you are raising a concern, write down the incident and the deadline you may face. For discrimination, tribunal time limits can be three months less a day; contact Acas promptly about early conciliation and the clock. Ask your union first if you belong to one; Unite, UNISON, GMB and the IWGB organise workers across these sectors. Citizens Advice and law centres can help you find advice. The EHRC enforces specific public-sector duties. Report suspected underpayment to HMRC’s minimum wage complaint service, labour exploitation to the GLAA, and unsafe work to the HSE. A general audit is not a reason to wait.

Audit evidence can support lawful positive action under section 158, such as proportionate targeted training to address disadvantage or under-representation. Recruitment and promotion tie-breaks under section 159 have narrower conditions, including candidates being as qualified as each other. These provisions do not allow automatic preference or blanket quotas. Keep the evidence and reasoning for any measure you adopt.

Collecting diversity data without breaking data law

Ethnicity, religious or philosophical belief, sexual orientation, health information such as disability, and trade-union membership are special-category data. For identifiable records, you need an Article 6 lawful basis and a separate Article 9 condition. Legal obligation, public task or legitimate interests may provide the Article 6 basis, depending on purpose and employer.

For group-level equality monitoring, Data Protection Act 2018, Schedule 1, paragraph 8 can support the substantial-public-interest condition. It covers ethnicity, belief, health and sexual orientation, not trade-union membership. It requires an appropriate policy document. It cannot support individual decisions, processing likely to cause substantial damage or distress, or continued processing after a qualifying written notice to stop.

Employee consent is often unsuitable because of the power imbalance, though not legally impossible. Explain your actual basis. Make voluntary survey answers optional, offer “prefer not to say”, separate monitoring from selection and restrict access. Northern Ireland’s prescribed monitoring needs its own process.

Small aggregates can identify someone without naming them. Combine or suppress categories where necessary and set a justified retention period. Anonymised statistics fall outside UK GDPR; identifiable source records do not. Consult the ICO’s guidance and our equality data guide.

What is changing, and when

These are the in-force powers and proposed changes as at 1 October 2026.

1. 6 April 2026Action plan power in force, publication voluntary

   Employment Rights Act 2025, section 33, commenced by SI 2026/323, enables regulations requiring gender pay gap and menopause action plans for employers with at least 250 employees, excluding some public authorities. Voluntary publication went live on 7 April 2026.

2. 30 October 2026Stronger harassment duties are scheduled

   Great Britain’s current duty is to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment. From 30 October, it becomes all reasonable steps. Third-party harassment liability is also scheduled, with an all-reasonable-steps defence. Acas explains the changes. Review customer and service-user risks, training, complaint routes and responses.

Ethnicity and disability pay reporting remains proposed

The proposed Equality (Race and Disability) Bill would introduce reporting for employers with at least 250 employees. The consultation closed on 10 June 2025. The government published its response and indicative clauses on 25 March 2026, covering pay gaps, workforce composition, declaration rates and action plans. These are proposals, not an in-force duty. No first reporting year is confirmed.

Use the current rules for sex data

Following For Women Scotland, GOV.UK guidance updated on 21 May 2026 says pay gap reporting must use biological sex. Use a consistent, proportionate and confidential process, without singling out staff or requesting documentation. Gender Recognition Certificate information has separate confidentiality protections. Do not disclose it in workforce reports. See our trans rights guide.