The UK law entitles women and men to equal pay for equal work, though a 10% gap remains between median full-time pay for women and men. The Equality Act of 2010 protects against discrimination in employment terms based on various attributes and allows women to bring claims against employers for less favorable terms than men for equal or equivalent work. Non-compliance with equal pay legislation risks litigation, rising equal pay tribunals, financial liabilities, reputational damage, and impacts on productivity and talent retention. Aon Hewitt offers an equal pay audit tool to assess pay inequalities through data collection, analysis, and recommendations.

1. The principle that women and men are entitled to equal pay for doing equal or like work is embedded in the UK law. According to the Office of National Statistics, the gender pay gap has almost halved since the original equal pay legislation came into force in 1970, but there remains a pay gap of approximately 10% between the median level of full-time pay for women and men in the UK.
Highlights of the Equality Act 2010:
The Act provides protection against unfair, direct or indirect, discrimination in the terms of employment on grounds of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership and pregnancy and maternity.
It allows a woman to bring a claim on her employer if her terms and conditions of employment are less favourable than a man for doing either equal work or work rated as equivalent, or work of equal value on any of aforementioned grounds.
Equal pay provisions apply to all contractual terms including wages and salaries, non-discretionary bonuses, holiday pay, sick pay, overtime, shift payments, and occupational pension benefits, and to non-monetary terms such as leave entitlements or access to sports and social benefits.
Equal Pay for all

2. Non-compliance with UK or European legislation could result in litigation
The number of Equal Pay tribunals continues to rise, and both private and public sector are now under scrutiny
Lawsuits create financial risks such as liabilities arising out of successful legal challenges and the cost of defence
Risks to company’s reputation from legal action and the subsequent issues with attracting and retaining talent
Productivity and profitability are impacted by working practices, which penalises certain staff demographics
Poor communication and transparency can lead to employee perception of reward decisions being unfair
How this may affect you?
How can Aon Hewitt help?
Our Equal Pay Audit tool provides a simple, methodical and cost-effective way to determine pay inequalities in your organisation. We offer a straight-forward data collection process, robust analysis and a clear results presentation, along with insightful commentary from our experts.
Our approach
We will collect data, analyse it and provide you with a traffic light risk summary showing areas your company needs to focus on as a priority, areas that will need attention in the future, and areas not causing any concern. We will then make specific recommendations and suggest further analysis that might be required. A sample output is shown below.
Contact us:
Duncan Brown
Head of UK Reward Consulting
duncan.brown@aonhewitt.com
+44(0)207 086 9037 | +44(0)77 95 027 051
@duncanbHR
Jackie Waller
Principal Reward Consultant
jackie.waller@aonhewitt.com
+44(0)1727 888 394 | +44(0)79 61 534 199