Equal pay for other protected characteristics?

TheEquality Act 2010 protects employees against discrimination relating to a range of characteristics, including sex, race and disability.  

Equal pay has always been slightly different from other types of discrimination under UK equality law.

How is equal pay law different?

The specific equal pay rules only apply to differences in pay between men and women.

Under these rules, an employee can compare their pay with someone of the opposite sex who is doing equal work. This can include:

• the same or similar work
• work rated as equivalent
• work of equal value.

The employer can only defend the claim if it can show that the difference in pay is because of a genuine “material factor” which is not sex.

What about other protected characteristics like race and disability?

There’s currently no equivalent equal pay system for any other protected characteristic.

This means that an employee who believes they’re being paid less because of another protected characteristic (for example, race, sexual orientation or disability), can bring a discrimination claim although the legal rules and the remedies available are different.

What is the Government proposing?

The Government is now consulting on whether employee rights should expand to differences in pay relating to race and disability.

These could give employees experiencing race or disability pay discrimination similar rights to those bringing sex related equal pay claims.

This could allow employees to compare their pay with colleagues doing the same or similar work, work rated as equivalent, or work of equal value.

A tribunal could also have the power to change the employee’s contractual pay terms following a successful claim. This would mean that the tribunal could not only award compensation but also correct the discriminatory pay difference going forward.

What else is being considered?

The ongoing consultation covers a wide range of other proposals, including:

1. requiring employers to provide pay information in job adverts or before interview
2. strengthening requirements around equal pay audits and job evaluation schemes
3. bringing back statutory questionnaires for pay discrimination claims
4. creating a new Equal Pay Regulatory and Enforcement Unit with enforcement powers
5. giving tribunals more flexibility to extend time limits in equal pay cases.

What should HR teams do?

The consultation closes on 27 October 2026.

• Watch these proposals closely.
• If they become law, they could significantly change how employers need to identify, explain and correct pay differences across their workforce.

Further reading

• Government Equal Pay and pay discrimination consultation paper – www.gov.uk
• Tesco Stores v Element – what does work mean in equal value claims – Hunter Law
• Equal Pay guidance – Equality and Human Rights Commission

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