Mind the gender pay gap: progress and next steps for the legal profession

It comes as no surprise that gender equality in the legal profession remains an issue that law firms and barristers' chambers alike attempt to address. In this Feature, we’ll consider the progress made so far, what 2025 looks like for women in the legal profession, and the steps law firms and chambers must take to ‘Accelerate Action’ – the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day (IWD). 

Reading time: 12 minutes

Free work and gender pay gap reporting

How many days would you work for free alongside your paid male counterparts? According to analysis by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), the average woman works for free for 48 days of the year when comparing their salary to that of the average man. In fact, Sunday 16 February 2025 – this year’s Women’s Pay Day – marked the point at which the average woman stopped working for free. For some women, this period lasts even longer depending on various factors, including age and region. Women between 50 and 59 years old have the highest pay gap (18.9%) and work for free until 11 March 2025, while women working in South East England, where the gender pay gap is the largest (17.8%), work for free until 7 March 2025. Meanwhile, when looking at the private sector, TUC reports that the gender pay gap is 18.3%, meaning that women work for free for around 67 days.

Despite mandatory gender pay gap reporting for employers with at least 250 employees, in 2022/23 the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) sent 732 warning notices to those that had failed to report their data – this is up from 613 in 2021/22 but down significantly from the 1,456 organisations that received a warning in 2017/18. With companies’ gender pay gap reports next due on 4 April 2025, it’ll be interesting to see whether improvements have been made over the past year – to both the number of organisations publishing their reports and the actual pay gap.

Across many law firms, data shows that women’s median hourly pay worsened between 2022/23 and 2023/24. That said, Travers Smith LLP’s 2023/24 data shows that women’s median hourly pay was 28.5% lower than men’s for this period (down from a 39.9% gap in 2022/23), while the gap at Charles Russell Speechlys LLP also decreased for the same period, falling from 34.1% in 2022/23 to 32.9% in 2023/24 – so, there are improvements at some firms.

Despite women making up a higher proportion of solicitors (62%) than men, and the gender pay gap having fallen by one-quarter among full-time employees in the past decade, lawyers are among the workers currently experiencing some of the widest pay gaps and progress remains slow. Keep your eyes peeled on the latest data published by any of your shortlisted law firms or chambers this April. You can search and compare gender pay gap data via the government’s gender pay gap service.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the gender pay gap for all employees decreased to 13.1% in April 2024, down from 14.2% in April 2023. Although it’s good to acknowledge these gradual improvements, the discrepancies in pay remain. In fact, analysis published by PwC last year suggested that it’d take nearly 30 years to close the gender pay gap in the UK based on the progress seen between 2011 and 2023 – and this is only a small fraction of the issue.

Ethnicity gender pay gap

There are further nuances to the gender pay gap problem. Last year the Fawcett Society published a report – Double Trouble: The Ethnicity Gender Pay Gap – to highlight how ethnicity pay gaps exacerbate the gender pay gap for Black and minority ethnic women. Women of Bangladeshi, Pakistani, and mixed white and Black Caribbean heritage see the largest ethnicity pay gaps of 14.7%, 11.8% and 10.6%, respectively, compared to white British women. When compared to white British men, this gap widens even further to 28.5%, 25.9% and 25%, respectively, according to the Fawcett Society’s analysis of ONS data.

In the #EthnicityPayGapCampaign report from 2022, it was found that 52% of Black women surveyed had experienced being paid less than white colleagues in the same role. Those surveyed also commented on being turned down for promotion and discussed health issues relating to workplace stress and marginalisation. Adding to this, Fawcett’s 2022 Sex and Power report demonstrated that Black and ethnic minority women are almost entirely absent in the most senior positions in the UK. Alesha De-Freitas, head of policy, research and advocacy at the Fawcett Society, said: “The ethnicity pay gap is creating a double trouble for Black and minoritised women in the UK. The figures that we have are so very stark – that women of Bangladeshi heritage are earning on average close to a third less per hour than white British men should be a national outrage.”

De-Freitas called for “urgent intervention” to close these gaps, while urging the government to make ethnicity pay gap reporting mandatory and require all companies with persistent gaps to publish action plans – and be “held to account when they do not”.

Meanwhile, the intersection of gender, ethnicity and parenthood produces even larger wage gaps, particularly for mothers of Pakistani and Bangladeshi heritage, the Fawcett Society reported. The Ethnicity Motherhood Pay Penalty report published in June 2023 found that across “the medium to long term income the mean motherhood pay penalty is around 45% compared to women who have not had children”. Mothers of Indian and white heritage saw pay gaps of 1% compared to women of the same ethnicity with no children; the gap was larger at 10% for mothers of Black African heritage; and 13% for mothers of Pakistani and Bangladeshi heritage.

Reasons contributing to the gap

The motherhood pay penalty contributes significantly to the gender pay gap and gender ethnicity pay gap. Despite discrimination during pregnancy being prohibited under the Equality Act 2010, issues continue to arise for women making job applications and those in work while pregnant. This is exacerbated by the unequal sharing of caring responsibilities or parental leave.

According to the Fawcett Society’s Ethnicity Motherhood Pay Penalty report, “Black and minoritised mothers make up a large proportion of the 28% of British workers who are not entitled to any form of paid parental leave because of their employment status or length of service”. Lack of appropriate, affordable and culturally sensitive Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) and flexible working opportunities were also cited in the Ethnicity Motherhood Pay Penalty report as factors contributing to the issue.

Elsewhere, the so-called ‘negotiation gap’ or ‘ask gap’ is often referenced when considering the reasons behind the persisting gender pay gap. Nina Rousille, who completed a post-doctorate at the London School of Economics and joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s economics department as an assistant professor in 2023, explained that the “gender ask gap measures the extent to which women ask for lower salaries than comparable men”. Speaking about her research in ‘The Role of the Ask Gap in Gender Pay Inequality’, Rousille said: “Right off the bat, if I look at a man and a woman with similar resumes on the platform [Hired.com], the woman is on average asking for three per cent less than the man.”

Meanwhile, a recent study looking at the differences between boys and girls in primary school found that “boys tend to overestimate their abilities compared to girls”, suggesting they may “feel more entitled to push the boundaries during negotiations”. Sophie Arnold, a New York University doctoral student and the lead author of the paper, indicated that these findings could explain the gender pay gap in adults in the workplace.

Employment Rights Bill

The Employment Rights Bill – laid out by ministers in October 2024 – is expected to make waves in the employment space over the next few years, and includes several policies to improve diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. Speaking about the bill, Anneliese Dodds, former minister for women and equalities of the UK, previously said: “There are a number of measures within our landmark Employment Rights Bill which will support us in this ambition, and which will have a positive impact on women across the country.”

Many of the reforms are unlikely to take effect until 2026 and it’s anticipated that the bill will be passed into law by summer 2025 at the earliest. Among the proposed reforms outlined in October 2024 is clause 26, which is the requirement for large employers (those with 250 or more employees) to create action plans on addressing gender pay gaps. The TUC hopes that this requirement will help employers to address the changes needed to improve the gender pay gap.

In October 2024, the government published a summary of its “working assumption”. The summary outlined that the theory behind the requirement is that in the short term, employers will improve their understanding of the actions needed to reduce their gender pay gap, leading to a “sustained reduction in the gender pay gap in organisations with at least 250 employees” in the long term.

Meanwhile, the latest revision of the bill as it moves through parliament states that the regulations may, among other things, make terms about:

• the contents of these action plans;
• how the plans are published; and
• when and how frequently the plans should be published or updated.

It’s important that employers are aware of the reasons for the gender pay gap before they try to resolve it. Despite being broadly coined as ‘equality action plan’, the proposed requirements relate specifically to gender equality, and not to other protected characteristics such as race or disability.

Among other things, the bill proposes reforms to the April 2024 right to request flexible working from day one of employment, sets out plans to ban zero-hour contracts (women are 1.2 times more likely to be on a zero-hour contract than men) and outlines new provisions to make it unlawful to dismiss a woman while pregnant, on maternity leave and within six months of returning to work.

Accelerating action

What else are the organisations advocating for change calling for to address the pay gap issue?

Reviewing gender pay gap reporting

While gender pay gap reporting is a requirement for employers with at least 250 employees, evidence shows that many companies continue to report late, or not at all, as outlined earlier in this article. At the start of the year, a number of organisations and groups put forward recommendations for changes to improve pay gaps as part of a debate that took place in Westminster Hall. The TUC was among these groups and suggested that the requirement for gender pay gap reporting be extended to include employers with 50 or more employees.

There have also been calls for mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting, with some organisations publishing voluntary reports. The government is looking to develop a new Equality (Race and Disability) Bill, making ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting mandatory for employees with at least 250 employees, but this is still subject to consultations and unlikely to take effect in 2025.

Early Childhood Education and Care

“Access to affordable ECEC is key to enabling mothers to return to the workplace,” the Fawcett Society stated in its Ethnicity Motherhood Pay Penalty report. This, in turn, could support mothers in returning to full time or flexible work and reduce the risk of large motherhood pay penalties. Research from the Fawcett Society in 2024 found that one-third of parents with young children in England find it difficult to afford childcare, while one-quarter of a million mothers with young children are leaving their jobs as a result of issues with balancing work and childcare. Jemima Olchawski, the Fawcett Society’s chief executive, said: “Our childcare is some of the most expensive in the world and it isn’t working.” The charity has previously called for an expansion of the current free hours of ECEC so that all children are eligible, not just those with working parents. 

Flexible working

Since April 2024 employees have had the right to request flexible working from day one, with employers able to refuse an application request only if it’s considered ‘reasonable’ to do so. However, the government’s promises to make “flexible working the default from day one for all workers” has received criticism from several parties. Taking to X, The 4 Day Week Foundation called the government’s proposals “weak and disappointing”, arguing that the “proposed new *default right* to flexible working is actually just a right to request (which already exists)”. The Fawcett Society has called for “more comprehensive reforms” to “normalise the uptake of flexible work”, supporting both retention and progression in the workplace.

Supporting career progression

With women less likely to advocate for pay rises or promotions, career progression support is vital. Among several recommendations, the Fawcett Society has suggested:

• conducting “annual audits to track how training budgets are spent and whether race or parenthood are factors in who has access to courses”;
• making sure “Black and minoritised mothers have equitable access to mentorship schemes”; and
• supporting and training managers “to conduct appraisals that are supportive and developmental, without gendered or racialised assumptions about individual’s goals”.

Discover other key ways to Accelerate Action for gender equality via the IWD website.

2025 and onwards

The statistics outlined above highlight the need for continued work in this area – and this year’s IWD theme, Accelerate Action, “emphasises the urgency of making faster, more effective strides” towards gender equality. “Organisations need to accelerate efforts to address the systemic barriers that face women at all stages of their career,” said Pavita Cooper, UK chair of the 30% Club – a business campaign aimed at boosting the number of women in board seats and executive leadership of companies all over the world. Although progress has been made, the pace of change is slow and there are still many barriers facing women in the workplace. It’s time to “move beyond ineffective practice and implement meaningful changes for bold, decisive action that positively impacts gender equality”.

As we await the impact of the Employment Rights Bill over the next few years, there’s nothing stopping individual organisations from identifying reasons for their gender pay gaps and gender ethnicity pay gaps, as well as taking “swift and decisive steps” to Accelerate Action.

Olivia Partridge (she/her) is the content manager at LawCareers.Net.