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The government is seeking views on a comprehensive reform of the current equal pay framework.

Such a move was foreshadowed in Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay where it stated that it would ‘finish the business of ending pay discrimination at work’. Work on this was begun in 2025 when the government issued a ‘call for evidence’.

Now we have a consultation (ends on 27 October 2026), which envisages a two-phase strategy to take this forward:

1. Phase 1: improving the current system by streamlining procedures and strengthening transparency and enforcement, and
2. Phase 2: once the government is satisfied the system is improved, broadening protections to close gaps in the law

The government has also committed to an extended implementation period before any measures are commenced.

Phase 1 – fixing the system

Phase 1 includes consulting on:

• increasing transparency of pay practices to prevent discrimination before it happens
• reviewing and reforming the process for pay discrimination claims to ensure they are faster, fairer, and more cost-effective, and
• establishing a new Equal Pay Regulation and Enforcement Unit, with potential strengthened powers to uphold equal pay law

Increasing transparency

The measures proposed include:

• Introducing a statutory requirement for employers to publish information about pay and conditions in job adverts – in the absence of a job advert, the employer would have to give the candidate this information in writing before the job interview. Ministers will consult on whether organisations should publish an exact salary, a salary range or a benchmark rate, and whether information beyond basic pay, such as bonuses or other contractual conditions, should also be included.
• Strengthening measures applying to employers found to have committed pay discrimination, or where there is reasonable suspicion of pay discrimination. This involves clarifying and reducing the exceptions to the existing requirement that a tribunal must order an employer to carry out an equal pay audit, where it has found an equal pay breach. This would remove ‘broad and vague’ exceptions and instead provide clarity that such an order must be made to an employer found to be in breach of the equal pay scheme unless the employer has already completed an audit in the previous 3 years which meets the relevant requirements. In addition, if an employer has been found to have committed an equal pay breach, a tribunal must also order the implementation of a non-discriminatory job evaluation scheme if an up-to-date scheme is not already in place.
• Reinstating the statutory questionnaire procedure (repealed in 2013) to be used in pay discrimination cases only. Use of the questionnaire would be optional, not mandatory. The previous questionnaire will be adapted to make it ‘simpler and more effective’.

Pay discrimination enforcement

Respondents to the sections of the call for evidence relating to pay discrimination agreed that equal pay litigation is exceptionally complex, lengthy, and expensive. This is ‘particularly true of claims involving comparators undertaking work that is argued to be of equal value to the claimant’s work (‘equal value’ claims), where delays have been most acute’.

To that end, the government will launch formal reviews into:

• the rules of procedure for pay discrimination claims, and
• the operations of the independent panel of experts

These reviews ‘will aim to ensure claimants and employers no longer face the prospect of decade-long legal cases, identifying and addressing inefficiencies and perverse incentives’. They will include a focus on ‘equal value’ claims and material factor defence litigation, where delays have been most acute. These reviews will be completed and implemented before any new pay discrimination requirements relating to race, disability or outsourced workers.

Equal Pay Regulatory and Enforcement Unit

The current model for equal pay enforcement places a heavy burden on the individual to enforce the law through a reactive and complaint-led process. This leads to high levels of litigation, limits progress toward equality and drives employers and employees toward an adversarial approach.

The government is committed to reducing the current reliance on this model. It will establish a new Equal Pay Regulatory and Enforcement Unit (EPREU) whose remit will apply to pay discrimination under equal pay, direct or indirect discrimination (where relating to sex, disability or race), discrimination arising from disability, or reasonable adjustment provisions.

The EPREU’s work will include work to improve the tools available to help employers and workers to uphold the law, including guidance on points of contention such as what factors may or may not be relied on by employers. Alongside this guidance, the government envisages that the statutory code of practice for equal pay, last updated by EHRC in 2016, will need to be replaced to provide further guidance and tools for employers.

The consultation asks for views on the following 3 measures to create new powers for the EPREU:

1. requiring the disclosure of evidence before triggering a formal investigation process, including verbal evidence, pay data and information
2. strengthening investigation powers by enabling the EPREU, as part of the investigation process, to require that a job evaluation scheme and/or equal pay audit be undertaken where this would help to establish whether pay discrimination has occurred
3. requiring those subject to inquiry recommendations to respond to them and provide updates on implementation

Phase 2 – making the right to equal pay effective for all

Phase 2 will involve:

• ensuring that pay discrimination on the basis of race and disability is taken as seriously as sex, and
• requiring employers to take all reasonable steps to uphold pay equality in their contractual arrangements

This involves some pretty radical changes (and is likely to be ways off). The consultation states that these reforms would only take effect after the government has taken the steps necessary to fix the existing system outlined in Phase 1. 

The consultation notes that channelling sex-based pay discrimination claims through the distinct equal pay mechanism, while race- and disability-based pay claims are treated as ordinary discrimination claims, has led to inconsistency in protection between the protected characteristics.

The consultation states that neither set of provisions is consistently more advantageous to claimants than the other but acknowledges that those who experience pay discrimination on the ground of race or disability and those who experience it on the ground of sex do not have the same rights and protections. To that end, the consultation proposes to ‘broadly level-up’ the protections against pay discrimination on all three grounds.

The following proposals are put forward to ‘level up’ pay protection based on race, disability and sex:

• Tribunals would be able, by way of remedy, to modify the terms of a claimant’s contract where it has been found to be discriminatory in a claim of direct or indirect discrimination (relating to sex, disability or race); discrimination arising from disability; or a breach of the duty to make reasonable adjustments.
• Employers found to have discriminated in terms of pay on the basis of race or disability would be ordered to undertake an equal pay audit. In addition, they would be required to undertake a job evaluation scheme.
• Allowing claims for pay discrimination where work is not materially similar but is ‘rated as equivalent’ or of ‘equal value’, for race and disability
• Allowing hypothetical comparators under the equal pay regime in two limited prescribed scenarios.
• Time limits for equal pay claims will be extendable on ‘a just and equitable basis’, as is currently available for direct and indirect discrimination claims.

The consultation also seeks to address the scope for employers to avoid equal pay obligations by outsourcing services. It notes that the requirement for a comparator in the same employment under the Equality Act prevents many outsourced workers from comparing their contractual terms with those of ‘in-house’ employees. The consultation proposes to create ‘a duty on employers to take all reasonable steps to uphold pay equality in their contractual arrangements’. This new duty would apply to all parties involved in an outsourcing arrangement, including the principal, any intermediary, and the employer that actually employs the outsourced worker. The duty would be enforced by the EPREU, by requiring each party to take steps to ensure pay equity in the future. It would not involve direct claims by employees or any compensation payments.