London, Feb 19: Women in the UK will not achieve equal pay with men until 2056 at the current pace of progress, according to a report by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), which warned that the gender pay gap remains stubbornly wide.
The report estimates that the UK gender pay gap stands at 12.8 per cent overall, equivalent to £2,548 a year. At the present rate of improvement, it will take another 30 years to close the gap, the umbrella body said.
“Women have effectively been working for free for the first month and a half of the year compared to men,” TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak said.
“Imagine turning up to work every single day and not getting paid. That’s the reality of the gender pay gap. In 2026 that should be unthinkable. With the cost of living still biting hard, women simply can’t afford to keep losing out. They deserve their fair share,” he added.
The report found that inequality widens as women age, largely because they are more likely than men to take on unpaid caring responsibilities and are not adequately supported by childcare, social care provision and flexible working arrangements.
Pay disparities vary across sectors.
In the water industry, women earn on average 3 per cent more than men. In accommodation, food services and agriculture, women earn around 3 per cent less. However, the gap is significantly wider in education, where women earn 17 per cent less than their male counterparts, and in finance and insurance, where the discrepancy rises to 27.2 per cent.
The TUC also highlighted the impact of zero-hours contracts, which disproportionately affect women and depress their earnings.
Employers will be required to publish action plans to address gender pay disparities, but the TUC cautioned that these “must be tough, ambitious and built to deliver real change, otherwise they won’t work”.
Separate research published in the British Journal of Industrial Relations suggested that the gender pay gap may have been underestimated for more than two decades.
Researchers said the Office for National Statistics had failed to fully account for receiving more data from larger employers in its annual survey of hours and earnings, potentially skewing official estimates.
The findings add to pressure on policymakers to accelerate reforms aimed at tackling workplace inequality and supporting women’s participation in the labour market.
