Gender Pay Gap – Action Plans
The Employment Bill set out plans to improve gender equality in the workplace, by extending reporting requirements for large employers. Following Royal Assent of the Employment Rights Bill, on 18 December 2025, The Employment Rights Act 2025 will bring forward requirements for employers with 250 or more employees will have the option to produce and publish a voluntary action plan alongside their gender pay gap data for the 2026/27 reporting year and will make it a mandatory requirement from April 2027/28 reporting year.
Part of these plans will include how the business is supporting women experiencing menopause by setting out steps it might take in ensuring employees have access to information not only about the menopause but wider health issues for all staff that might impact their wellbeing and may disadvantage them in the workplace, for women this might include:
- endometriosis
- fibroids
- polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)
When addressing these action plans employers are also being asked to consider how employees may be disadvantaged in the workplace due to the overlapping impact of their sex and other characteristics, such as:
- ethnicity
- disability status
- socioeconomic background
The government have said that they want action plans to encourage employers to make meaningful and long-lasting changes to reduce their gender pay gap and support employees experiencing menopause.
The objective is that employers will provide supporting action plans that address two key actions in each section one each on the gender pay gap and menopause, but would like businesses to go beyond this and extend the remit further by considering other areas to demonstrate their commitment to workplace gender equality.
Senior leaders will need to sign off the chosen actions within the chosen plans, and may need to allocate employees’ time and resources for implementation.
For organisations choosing to voluntarily produce and publish their first action plan the deadlines are any time during the 2026 to 2027 reporting year being:
- 30 March 2027 – for most public authority employers
- 4 April 2027 – for private, voluntary and all other public authority employers
How to produce your action Plan
Additional process guidance will be published for employers in April 2026 with covering the following five steps that employers should consider when developing their action plan:
- Understanding the issues in your organisation
- Selecting your actions
- Submitting your action plan
- Tracking the outcomes of your actions
- Reviewing your plan
The Government will set out further guidance to assist employers in creating action plans closer to the mandatory deadline.
Employers can also view steps that can be taken to ensure transparency in organisations when considering recruitment and how best to gather information that can assist with the formulation of data that will feed into the requirements on gender pay gap and equality as set out by the Office of Equality and Opportunity which can be reviewed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/action-plans-list-of-actions