Equal Pay Day 2025: Why Intersectional Data Matters
Equal Pay Day 2025: Why Intersectional Data Matters
For Equal Pay Day 2025, Matilda Fairgrieve, Inclusion and Wellbeing Campaign Officer at Business in the Community, and Imogen Wells, Research Coordinator at Business in the Community, explore the need for intersectional pay-gap reporting and how employers can take action to close pay inequality.
Equal Pay Day marks the point in the year when women stop earning relative to men due to the gender pay gap. According to the Fawcett Society, the stubborn, structural gender pay inequality means that from 22nd November, women effectively continue to work without pay until the end of 2025.
Recent data from the Office for National Statistics shows that in April 2025, the gender pay gap stood at 6.9%, down from 7.1% in April 2024. Whilst the implementation of mandatory gender pay gap reporting has clearly had a positive effect on the gender pay gap, there is still a way to go. If progress continues at such increments, it will take around 40 years to close the gap entirely. Today, women still earn just £0.88 for every £1 earned by men on an hourly basis.
Transparency remains a crucial first step in tackling the drivers of inequity. Business in the Community (BITC)’s Gender Pay Dashboard provides an opportunity to break down live information on the gender pay gap by sector and employer focus. BITC has been actively contributing to the development of UK Government initiatives to close the gap, drawing upon insight from our campaigns and The Times Top 50 Employers for Gender Equality to help shape Gender Pay Gap and Menopause Action Plan interventions.
Insights from The Times Top 50 Employers for Gender Equality 2025
Data collected from The Times Top 50 2025 on actions taken by employers demonstrates promising commitments to eliminating pay discrimination and embedding transparency, with 81% of respondents conducting gender pay gap analysis.
Best practice in 2025 included the innovative use of gender pay and bonus gap calculators. These tools allowed decision-makers to assess the impact of proposed salary and bonus changes on the organisation’s gender gap before finalising decisions. Organisations also monitored pay review decisions for bias through moderated peer discussions, with colleagues briefed to interrogate and challenge decisions to ensure fairness and consistency.
However, pay transparency remains a significant area for improvement. Only 21% of applicants are currently publishing their salaries or salary bandings internally and externally. Skyscanner showcased best practice in this area, enabling colleagues to view salary ranges associated with their role and their individual position within that range directly on their personal profile. Transparency also extends to active learning for colleagues through workshops and town halls, designed to demystify pay structures and progression.
Acknowledging the interplay of root causes of the gender pay gap, summarised as unequal power and representation, unequal caring responsibilities and unequal workplace treatment demands attention to how pay inequity may be experienced across different intersectional women and marginalised genders. 65% of respondents in the Times Top 50 2025 do not currently combine data such as Gender and Ethnicity to provide a more comprehensive understanding of pay trends.
The Compounding Impact of Ethnicity on the Pay Gap
The intersection of gender and ethnicity in pay inequality uncovers a deepened inequity faced by ethnically diverse women. For example, for every £1 earnt by a White man, a Bangladeshi woman earns 75p on average.
BITC’s Race at Work Charter calls for businesses to capture and publicise ethnicity data as a crucial step towards reporting on pay. In 2024, 54% of employers were capturing the ethnicity data of their employees at different levels in the organisation, while 46% were not (BITC Breaking Barriers to Progression).
Ethnicity pay gap reporting is soon becoming mandatory in the UK for all large employers (250+ employees) through the Equality (Race and Disability) Bill and with this, we hope to see the ethnicity pay gap diminish and a rise in the number of organisations looking at their data through an intersectional lens.
BITC’s Gender Pay Gap Dashboard page and 8-step route map to gender equality is not the only compounding intersectional characteristic that can deepen pay inequity. The upcoming Employment Rights Bill is expected to require employers to publish equality action plans that address their gender pay gaps. Together, with the Equality (Race and Disability) Bill, there is an opportunity to push for intersectional pay monitoring, drive progression and create an equitable labour market for everyone.
Our Gender and Race Campaigns exist to promote and protect an inclusive future. Review our campaign resources to consider how you can increase the momentum to eradicate unfair pay and ensure inclusion is future proofed.
