In March 2026, the UK government published a consultation response (links below) on proposals to require large employers to report on their disability (and ethnicity) pay gap. The response included draft primary legislation.
New pay gap duty
The law already requires gender pay gap reporting by an employer if it has at least 250 employees: Gender pay gap reporting: guidance for employers (gov.uk).
The government says a new duty will require these employers to publish similar information on their disability and ethnicity pay gap. They would report the same 6 calculations as for gender, using the same reporting dates, and the same online reporting service.
They would also be required to:
- report the breakdown of their workforce by ethnicity and disability status (referred to as ‘workforce reporting’),
- report data on the percentage of employees who did not state their disability or ethnicity status, and
- publish action plans (below).
Employers need not distinguish between different types of impairment. The requirement will be to give a ‘binary’ comparison, ie ‘disabled’ versus ‘non-disabled’ employees, using the EqA definition of ‘disability’. Even so, the government says it will consider how it can encourage organisations with sufficient data to disaggregate their data further, on a voluntary basis. It will also aim to ‘future-proof’ the legislation so as to allow for more granular disability reporting in due course, if this becomes appropriate.
There will be a minimum threshold for employees in each group, to protect anonymity. For example, for each calculation, at least 10 people might be needed for each category. However, policy work was still ongoing to determine the most appropriate threshold.
The original consultation proposed that employers should ask employees to share their disability status voluntarily. In asking for this data, employers should provide a ‘prefer not to say’ option, as this was personal data which an employee could choose not to share with their employer. Presumably this is still what the government proposes.
There will not be additional reporting requirements for public bodies, but that will be encouraged through guidance.
The geographical scope of the duty is to mirror that of the gender pay gap. So it would include private and voluntary sector employers in Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland), public sector bodies in England, and certain public authorities operating across Great Britain in relation to non-devolved functions – provided they have 250 or more employees.
The consultation response includes ‘indicative draft clauses’ for primary legislation (ie the Act of Parliament), demonstrating the model that the government intends to follow. These draft clauses may be subject to further refinement. They essentially enable the government to make regulations. The government says it will continue to develop the legislation, including the supporting regulations setting out detailed reporting requirements, and will publish more information in due course.
It will also develop guidance and practical tools to support employers.
The consultation response says employment rates for disabled people have gone up in recent years, but disabled people have, on average, lower incomes than non-disabled people. In 2023, the national disability pay gap was 12.7%.
This new duty was intended to be part of an Equality (Race and Disability) Bill, not yet published. The Minister for Equalities said the draft clauses are ‘in place of publishing a draft of the Equality (Race & Disability) Bill’.
Equality action plans, including disability
An employer required to publish their disability and ethnicity pay gap will also be required to publish an action plan to tackle these gaps.
A duty to publish an action plan is already being introduced for sex discrimination (s.33 Employment Rights Act 2025 inserting s.78A EqA), both to tackle any gender pay gap, and to support employees going through the menopause. Even before s.33 and eventual regulations under it take effect, gender equality action plans are being introduced on a voluntary basis from April 2026 (Creating an action plan: guidance for employers (gov.uk)). They are expected to become mandatory from spring 2027.
The government aims to harmonise the approaches for sex, race (including ethnicity) and disability, so that employers can produce a single equality action plan covering all of these, when all the reporting requirements are in force. The government says this recognises that some actions may be beneficial for multiple groups, such as flexible working.
Links
The Ministerial statement and consultation response are:
- Consultation response: Consultation on mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting: government response (gov.uk) and Annex A: Draft primary legislation (gov.uk), 25th March 2026 (linked from here).
- Statement by Seema Malhotra, Minister for Equalities: Ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting (parliament.uk), 25th March 2026
- (Original March 2025 consultation: Equality (Race and Disability) Bill: mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting: government consultation (gov.uk)).
Disability workforce reporting: previous consultation
In December 2021 the (Conservative) government launched a consultation on whether disability workforce reporting – eg publishing what proportion of their workforce is disabled – should be mandatory for large employers, ie those with at least 250 employees. The consultation also included practical issues such as people who have a disability within the EqA but who do not identify as disabled or do not feel comfortable disclosing the information. See Disability workforce reporting (gov.uk).
