Gender pay gap is 7.9% in 2021, ONS ASHE data finds

The headline gender pay gap is 7.9% in April 2021, latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reveals. This is up from the revised figure of 7% for 2020, but down from a revised 9% for 2019.

The ONS headline gender pay gap figure is based on median hourly earnings (excluding overtime) for full-time employees. On this basis, female employees earned 92.1% of male employees' hourly pay in April 2021.

The gender pay gap data is published in the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) 2021. The ASHE also provides official figures for April 2021 on annual, weekly and hourly pay and overtime pay, broken down by sector, standard industrial classification and occupation.

The ONS sounds a note of caution when it comes to comparing the ASHE 2021 findings on the gender pay gap with those from 2020. The ASHE 2020 data "was affected by both the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, in terms of wages and hours worked in the economy, and also disruption to the collection of data from businesses", the ONS says. "This means that comparisons with 2020 need to be treated with caution and we would encourage users to focus on the longer-term trends rather than year on year changes."

We report on the ASHE 2021 data on the gender pay gap. We have also published a separate analysis of the headline figures from ASHE 2021.

XpertHR offers a range of resources to help organisations measure and act to reduce pay gaps:

  • Cendex users can access a detailed analysis of trends in gender pay gap reporting submissions between the first round of reports (submitted in April 2018) and the latest round. Cendex also offers a gender pay gap reporting service to guide users through the process of data collection and metric calculation to meet current UK gender pay gap reporting requirements.
  • XpertHR's benchmarking service has full data from our analysis of latest gender pay gap reporting data, including data breakdowns by industry and organisation size.
  • Gapsquare - part of the XpertHR portfolio - offers HR and Reward professionals advanced pay equity solutions to provice actionable insights on existing pay gaps through their flagship software FairPay® Pro. Advanced statistical analysis identifies variables for employee demographics such as gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and disability, identifying the causes of pay gaps, and proposing and tracking remedial actions.
  • Our gender pay gap topic page has links to XpertHR compliance and good practice resources, including essential guidance on how to measure and report a gender pay gap.