Gender pay gap reporting in the UK
Rules last read on 5 November 2026. Applies to England, Scotland and Wales.
An employer with 250 or more employees on the snapshot date publishes six figures each year. The calculator works them out from your payroll file, in your browser.
Who reports, and by when
| Employer | Snapshot date | Publish by | Law |
|---|---|---|---|
| Private and voluntary sector | 5 April | 4 April the next year | S.I. 2017/172 |
| Most public authorities in England, and the listed bodies | 31 March | 30 March the next year | S.I. 2017/353, Schedule 1 |
Scottish and Welsh public authorities have other rules. Each legal entity reports for itself: group figures are an optional extra, and several payrolls of one entity merge into one set.
The six figures
- Mean gap in hourly pay (reg. 8) and median gap in hourly pay (reg. 9).
- Mean gap in bonus pay (reg. 10) and median gap in bonus pay (reg. 11), over the 12 months to the snapshot date, among people who received a bonus.
- The share of men and of women who received a bonus (reg. 12), out of all relevant employees of that sex.
- The share of men and women in each of four pay bands (reg. 13), ranked by hourly pay.
Each gap is (A − B) ÷ A × 100, A being men's figure and B women's. You may report whole percentages or one decimal place.
How hourly pay is worked out
- Take ordinary pay and bonus pay paid in the pay period that holds the snapshot date, and leave out ordinary pay for other periods.
- If a bonus covers a period of a different length, divide it by the days in that period and multiply by the days in the pay period. A month is 30.44 days and a year 365.25.
- Add them, multiply by 7, divide by the days in the pay period, then divide by the weekly working hours.
Ordinary pay covers basic pay, allowances, piecework, pay for leave and shift premium. It leaves out overtime, redundancy or termination pay, pay in lieu of leave, non-money pay and reimbursed expenses. Amounts are before tax and other deductions at source, and after salary sacrifice.
Weekly hours are your figure. Reg. 7 takes them from the contract if fixed, otherwise from the average of the last 12 weeks, otherwise a fair figure. Term-time and variable-hour cases change the result, so the calculator asks for the hours and never works them out.
Who counts where
Hourly figures and pay bands use full-pay relevant employees: people not paid at a reduced rate or nil because of leave in that pay period. Bonus figures use all relevant employees. Someone paid less for another reason, such as a strike, stays in.
Salaried partners count towards the 250 but stay out of the figures. Agency workers belong to the agency.
The figures rest on biological sex, according to the statutory guidance, which also sets out how to handle a record you cannot use and warns about disclosure. The calculator refuses a row without male or female, with its line number, and never guesses.
Where to publish
On your own website for three years, and on the government's gender pay gap service, where figures are typed in. Private and voluntary sector employers add a written statement signed by the person the regulations name (reg. 14); most public authorities give none.
Equality action plans
The government's guidance of May 2026 describes voluntary action plans for employers with 250 or more staff, and says they become mandatory from spring 2027, subject to legislation. We have not seen those regulations, so treat this as voluntary until they appear.