A curated set of UK equality, diversity and inclusion statistics — each one dated, sourced and linked, with a note on why it matters for people leaders. Figures are shown as published; where a stat is a few years old, its date says so. Use them, cite them, challenge them.
6.9%
The UK gender pay gap for median hourly pay was 6.9% for full-time employees and 12.8% for all employees in April 2025 (down from 7.1% full-time in April 2024).
Why it matters Progress is real but slow — a decade to shave a quarter off the full-time gap. If your organisation’s gap isn’t narrowing year on year, you’re now falling behind the national trend, not tracking it.
Office for National Statistics — Gender pay gap in the UK: 2025 · 2025
15.2%
Among the highest-paid tenth of employees the gender pay gap was 15.2% in April 2025 — more than double the gap at the median (6.9%).
Why it matters The gap is a seniority problem, not just a pay problem. Fixing it means fixing progression and senior hiring, not only salary benchmarking.
Office for National Statistics — Gender pay gap in the UK: 2025 · 2025
8%
Women occupy around 43% of FTSE 350 board positions, and 88% of FTSE 350 companies have reached or are near the 40% board target — yet women hold only 8% of CEO roles and 17% of Chair roles.
Why it matters Board targets worked; executive pipelines didn’t follow automatically. The representation question for the next decade is who runs the company, not who oversees it.
FTSE Women Leaders Review — 2026 report · 2026 (data as at end-2025)
2.3%
At December 2025, 98 FTSE 100 companies had at least one ethnic-minority director (up from 47 in 2015) and ethnic minorities held 20% of FTSE 100 board positions — but Black directors held only 2.3% of directorships, against 3.9% of the UK population aged 30–69.
Why it matters Aggregate “ethnic minority” targets can be met while specific communities go backwards. Disaggregate your own data or you will not see the same pattern in your pipeline.
Parker Review 2026 (with the Department for Business and Trade; sponsored by EY) · 2025 data (published March 2026)
39%
Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 39% more likely to financially outperform bottom-quartile peers; the same 39% likelihood held for top-quartile ethnic representation (dataset: 1,265 companies, 23 countries).
Why it matters The correlation between diverse leadership and performance has strengthened across four McKinsey editions — but treat it as a signal about leadership quality, a likelihood of outperformance, not a guaranteed ROI formula.
23%
Just 23% of UK organisations are training line managers in fair and inclusive people management — even though managers are where inclusion policy succeeds or fails.
Why it matters This is the frozen middle in national data: strategy at the top, lived experience at the bottom, and untrained managers in between. Budget for manager capability before the next awareness campaign.
£6,287
Professionals from working-class backgrounds are paid on average £6,287 (12%) less per year than colleagues from professional-managerial backgrounds in the same occupations — rising to £7,774 in the private sector.
Why it matters Socio-economic background is the pay gap almost nobody measures. A handful of employers already publish it — reporting it is a differentiator today and will read as table stakes tomorrow.
29.7pts
52.8% of disabled people were in employment versus 82.5% of non-disabled people — a gap of 29.7 percentage points, which widened year on year in the most recent data.
Why it matters The gap is moving the wrong way. If your hiring and retention of disabled colleagues merely holds steady, the labour market around you is getting worse — proactive adjustment and retention work is what changes the number.
Department for Work and Pensions / ONS — The employment of disabled people 2025 · 2025 (updated March 2026)
31%
31% of employers ensure a diverse interview panel or hiring team, 28% train all interviewers on legal obligations and objective interviewing, 27% remove biographical details from initial selection, and 25% adjust selection processes for neurodivergent or disabled candidates.
Why it matters The basic inclusive-recruitment toolkit is still minority practice. Adopting even two of these four puts you ahead of roughly seven in ten UK employers.
64%
64% of organisations attempting to fill vacancies had difficulty attracting the right candidates, and 69% reported increased competition for skilled workers.
Why it matters The talent-shortage numbers and the inclusive-practice numbers are the same story: employers say they can’t find people while screening out candidates who don’t match the template. Inclusion is the untapped supply line.
36%
More than a third (36%) of 50–69-year-olds feel at a disadvantage applying for jobs due to their age.
Why it matters Age is the bias hiding in plain sight in most recruitment processes — job-ad wording, “digital native” codewords, photo-heavy careers pages. It is also the one every single hiring manager will personally experience.
9.4 days
UK employees averaged 9.4 sickness-absence days per year — up from 7.8 in 2023 and 5.8 pre-pandemic (2019); the highest level the CIPD has recorded since 2010.
Why it matters Nearly two working weeks per person per year. Absence data is the wellbeing metric your CFO already believes — use it to fund the preventative work.
CIPD / Simplyhealth — Health and wellbeing at work 2025 · 2025
41%
41% of organisations cite mental ill health among their top three causes of long-term absence — the single biggest cause — and it is the second main cause (29%) of short-term absence.
Why it matters Mental health has overtaken bad backs as the reason people are off for months. Inclusion work — belonging, psychological safety, manager capability — is upstream prevention, not a separate agenda.
CIPD / Simplyhealth — Health and wellbeing at work 2025 · 2025
£51bn
Poor employee mental health costs UK employers around £51bn per year — presenteeism £24bn, turnover £20bn, absenteeism £7bn.
Why it matters Presenteeism — people at their desks but not okay — is the biggest line, and it’s the one exclusion feeds directly: colleagues who mask, hide identities or brace for microaggressions are the definition of present-but-not-thriving.
Deloitte UK — Mental health and employers: the case for investment · 2024
£4.70
Employers see an average return of about £4.70 in improved productivity for every £1 spent on employee mental health and wellbeing.
Why it matters The single most board-friendly number here. Pair it with the £51bn cost figure when making the investment case.
Deloitte UK — Mental health and employers: the case for investment · 2024
63%
63% of respondents exhibited at least one sign of burnout (exhaustion, mental distance from the job, or declining performance) — up from 51% in Deloitte’s previous survey.
Why it matters Burnout is a majority experience, not an edge case — which means your wellbeing offer has to be designed for everyone, not just those who self-identify as struggling.
Deloitte UK — Mental health and employers: the case for investment · 2024
20%
20% of neurodivergent employees say they have faced harassment or discrimination at work because of their neurodivergence; only around half feel their organisation (52%) or team (54%) has an open, supportive climate for talking about it.
Why it matters Roughly one in seven people are estimated to be neurodivergent — this isn’t a niche policy area, it’s a fifth of that population reporting mistreatment. Climate, not policy wording, is what your neurodivergent colleagues are reading.
51%
41% of neurodivergent employees face challenges in the workplace most days; 51% have taken time off work because of their neurodivergence; roughly one in three is dissatisfied with the adjustments provided.
Why it matters The absence line in your HR system already contains your neurodiversity gap — half of neurodivergent staff have taken time off because of unmet needs. Adjustments are cheaper than absence.
City & Guilds Foundation — Neurodiversity Index Report 2025 · 2025
55%
55% of people who disclosed their neurodivergence at work received an “OK” or “good” response, up from 42% the previous year; senior-leader disclosure has also risen.
Why it matters Disclosure responses improve fastest where leaders go first — the same senior-visibility pattern the Beyond Compliance data shows for trans inclusion.
City & Guilds Foundation — Neurodiversity Index Report 2025 · 2025
32%
Just 32% of workers think their organisation effectively trains managers to make reasonable adjustments for neurodivergent colleagues; another 32% don’t know how effective their employer is at all.
Why it matters Acas rarely uses language as blunt as “failing”. Manager training on adjustments is the specific, auditable fix — and it maps one-to-one onto tribunal risk under the Equality Act 2010.
Acas — Employers are failing to support neurodiversity at work · 2026
The Beyond Compliance figures below are from Joanne Lockwood’s own UK survey of organisations. Values are frozen as published; the full report lives on the Trans Inclusion Toolkit and is cited, not re-hosted.
50.7%
50.7% of UK organisations report no formal trans or non-binary inclusion policy.
Why it matters Half the market has nothing in writing. If you have even a basic policy you are ahead of the median — but the guidance gap below shows why paper alone is not the finish line.
Beyond Compliance survey (2025–26), SEE Change Happen / The Trans Inclusion Toolkit · 2025–26 (frozen as published)
6.1%
Just 6.1% of organisations tie trans inclusion to executive KPIs — leaving it discretionary under pressure.
Why it matters What isn’t measured gets dropped the moment it’s contested. KPI ownership is the difference between a commitment and a preference.
Beyond Compliance survey (2025–26), SEE Change Happen / The Trans Inclusion Toolkit · 2025–26 (frozen as published)
69.2%
69.2% of organisations report no openly trans or non-binary leaders at middle management or above.
Why it matters Visible seniority is the strongest safety signal an organisation can send — its absence tells trans and non-binary staff exactly how high they can rise while being themselves.
Beyond Compliance survey (2025–26), SEE Change Happen / The Trans Inclusion Toolkit · 2025–26 (frozen as published)
41.4%
41.4% of organisations have faced pushback on trans inclusion — internal, external, or both.
Why it matters Pushback is now the normal operating condition, not the exception. Plan for it: a “when challenged” decision framework beats improvising under fire.
Beyond Compliance survey (2025–26), SEE Change Happen / The Trans Inclusion Toolkit · 2025–26 (frozen as published)
36.4%
Of organisations that do have a trans-inclusion policy, 36.4% give managers no guidance to implement it.
Why it matters This is the paper shield: a policy that exists on paper but collapses the moment it’s tested, because nobody equipped the managers who have to hold it.
Beyond Compliance survey (2025–26), SEE Change Happen / The Trans Inclusion Toolkit · 2025–26 (frozen as published)
30.6%
30.6% of organisations estimate that only 0–10% of their staff would feel safe disclosing a trans identity.
Why it matters Psychological safety is the real audit. When a third of employers concede almost nobody would feel safe to disclose, headcount data on trans staff is measuring fear, not demographics.
Beyond Compliance survey (2025–26), SEE Change Happen / The Trans Inclusion Toolkit · 2025–26 (frozen as published)
79%
Eight in ten (79%) trans respondents had experienced bullying at work, against just under half (48%) of the full LGBT+ sample; 29% of LGBT+ people are not open about their identity with anyone at work.
Why it matters Trans colleagues carry a markedly heavier load than the wider LGBT+ population — a general LGBTQ+ policy that never says the word “trans” is not protecting the people most at risk.
TUC — Bullying, harassment and discrimination of LGBT people in the workplace · 2025
39%
Almost two in five (39%) LGBTQ+ employees feel they need to hide who they are at work; 12% believe they have been dismissed because of their identity. (This release reports LGBTQ+ people as a whole and does not break out trans respondents separately.)
Why it matters Masking is unpaid emotional labour on your payroll. Pair this with the £24bn presenteeism figure: hidden identity and lost productivity are the same cost measured twice.
Stonewall · 2025
Every figure here is dated and linked to its source, so you can cite it with confidence. Numbers move — this page is reviewed and refreshed. For the thinking behind them, browse the guides or the glossary; to talk about what they mean for your organisation, get in touch.
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