The headline figure doesn’t tell you the full story.
It tells you a disparity exists - but not why.
Beyond the Headline Figure.
A headline ethnicity pay gap figure tells you that a disparity exists between what white employees earn and what minoritised ethnic employees earn across your organisation. However, it does not tell you where in the organisation the disparity is concentrated, which employees are most affected, what is producing it, or what it would take to close it.
For example, a headline gap of 6% might reflect smaller pay differences at junior levels - where diversity tends to be greater and pay bands much narrower. Yet, simultaneously conceal a gap of 25% or more for Black women at senior grades, where the workforce is less diverse and pay discretion is wider. The headline averages these together, and in doing so, it omits the people who are most affected.
This service provides the detailed, disaggregated picture that a headline figure cannot, and then examines the processes that are producing the gaps. Understanding what the gap is and why it exists are both necessary before meaningful action can follow.
What’s This Got to Do with Public Health?
Fair pay is a health determinant. Pay inequity limits access to stable housing, adequate nutrition, healthcare, and the conditions that support physical and mental health. The Runnymede Trust’s 2025 report identified good employment and fair pay as core tenets of a healthy society, noting that economic insecurity (including wage gaps and precarious work) directly limits access to the building blocks of good health.
When this service examines pay equity, it does so with that understanding. The pay gap is one of the mechanisms through which structural discrimination produces real and significant consequences in people’s lives. Therefore, addressing it is part of a broader commitment to reducing the conditions that harm the health and wellbeing of minoritised ethnic employees.
What’s Included.
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Mean and median ethnicity pay gap: calculated for the organisation as a whole and disaggregated to reveal where the gaps are concentrated.
Disaggregated by grade, function, and length of service: examining whether the gap narrows or widens at different levels, in different parts of the organisation, and over time.
Intersectional disaggregation: examining how the pay gap differs across intersecting characteristics including race, gender, and disability, revealing the compound effects that a single-lens analysis would miss.
Bonus and total compensation analysis: base salary frequently conceals inequities that surface in bonus allocation, long-term incentives, and total compensation, particularly where managerial discretion plays a significant role. This component examines bonus gaps separately, including the percentage of employees receiving a bonus and the average amount, disaggregated by ethnicity and intersecting characteristics.
Year-on-year trend analysis: where historical data is available, examining whether gaps are narrowing, widening, or remaining static over time.
Benchmarking: contextualising the organisation’s gaps against published sector and national data where relevant and possible.
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The pay process audit examines how pay decisions are actually made across the organisation. From starting salaries through to annual reviews, bonus allocation, and progression decisions. It looks at where discretion exists, how that discretion is exercised, and whether there is adequate oversight to catch inequitable patterns before they become embedded.
The audit identifies the specific points where structural bias is most likely to enter and recommends changes to governance, oversight, and decision-making.
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Recommendations cover both the remediation of pay inequities that currently exist and systemic changes to the processes and governance structures that produced the gaps - so that the conditions for fair pay are built into how the organisation operates going forward.
What You Walk Away With.
A detailed, intersectional picture of where pay inequity exists in your organisation, understand the disaggregated reality beneath it - including which employees are most affected and where the gaps are most severe.
A clear understanding of what is producing the gaps - which processes, decisions, and points of discretion are allowing inequity to enter or persist in your organisation’s systems and structures.
Specific and actionable recommendations for both remediation and systemic change. These will address what exists now and redesign the structures that produced it so that the same gaps do not simply re-emerge.
For organisations preparing to publish their ethnicity pay gap (whether voluntarily or ahead of mandatory reporting), a rigorous analysis and credible action plan that can be published and is expected alongside the figures.
A Note on Data:
This service requires access to anonymised, employee-level pay records in order to calculate and disaggregate the pay gap accurately. All data is handled under strict confidentiality protocols and in compliance with UK GDPR. A data processing agreement is provided as standard. Data is used solely for the analysis and is not retained beyond the engagement of our services.
For organisations whose pay data is incomplete, inconsistently structured, or where ethnicity disclosure rates are low, the scoping conversation will help establish what analysis is possible and what the limitations of the findings would be.
For organisations requiring individual-level pay equity analysis to examine whether employees in comparable roles are paid differently when all legitimate variables are controlled for, this is available through a specialised partner. For more information, please get in contact to discuss this further.
Timeline.