I have been working in technology for most of my career, and for much of that time I had no disability. My sight loss began around ten years ago. By then, I was already established in senior roles.
I am fortunate for that. I genuinely believe that if I had been visually impaired from the start of my career, the path to where I am now would have been significantly harder. The barriers would have been there from day one: in recruitment, in how I was perceived, in the unspoken assumptions about capability that disabled people navigate from the moment they walk through the door.
That is not speculation. That is what the data tells us.
The TUC reported last November that disabled workers earn an average of £2.24 less per hour than non-disabled colleagues. That is more than £4,000 a year for full-time workers. But until employers are required to measure and report it, the gap stays invisible. And invisible problems do not get fixed.
The Announcement
On 25 March 2026, the government published its consultation response confirming mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting for large employers. Organisations with 250 or more employees will be required to report six standard measures: mean and median pay gaps, bonus gaps, and the distribution of staff across pay quartiles. They will also be required to produce action plans alongside their data.
This follows the King’s Speech commitment in July 2024 and a public consultation that ran through last year. Of those who responded, 87 per cent agreed that large employers should be required to report on their disability pay gaps.
Sir Stephen Timms, Minister for Social Security and Disability, was direct about the purpose:
“Disabled people deserve the same chance as everyone else to be rewarded fairly at work, but the fact is that pay gaps exist. Pay gap reporting will give organisations the data they need to reduce these gaps and improve fairness and inclusivity in the workplace.”
Sir Stephen Timms, Minister for Social Security and Disability
Why Measurement Matters
Gender pay gap reporting has been mandatory for large employers since 2017. What happened? Awareness increased. Conversations shifted. Progress, while uneven, started to happen. Not because good intentions suddenly multiplied. Because organisations could no longer look away from their own numbers.
That is what reporting does. It creates visibility. And visibility is the precondition for action.
I am not under any illusion that reporting alone will close the gap. Numbers without accountability are just numbers. The action plan requirement matters here. Employers will need to set out what they intend to do, not just what their gap currently is.
A Caution Worth Naming
There is a risk I want to name directly.
When organisations face pressure to close a reported gap quickly, the temptation is to reach for visibility. Tokenism. A disabled person placed in a senior position to improve a metric rather than to apply their expertise. That approach harms the individual, damages the credibility of inclusion efforts, and ultimately harms the cause it is supposed to serve.
Reporting must drive genuine structural change: equitable hiring, accessible workplaces, fair progression, and the removal of the hidden barriers that cause disabled people to cluster in lower-paid roles. That is a longer, harder conversation than a dashboard number. But it is the only one worth having.
What Organisations Should Do Now
Do not wait for legislation to take effect. The smart move is to start now.
- Audit your current data. Do you know how many disabled employees you have? Do you know how they are distributed across pay bands? If not, that is your first gap.
- Create safe disclosure environments. Pay gap reporting only works if disabled employees feel safe identifying themselves. That requires trust built over time, not a tickbox at onboarding.
- Review your progression pathways. Are there structural barriers making it harder for disabled employees to reach senior roles? Look at the evidence, not the assumptions.
- Design action plans with disabled people, not for them. Involve disabled employee networks in shaping what the response looks like.
Takeaway
Things only change when they are measured. That is not cynicism: it is how organisations work. Disability pay gap reporting will not fix everything. But it will make it impossible to claim ignorance. And that, in itself, is a significant shift.
The question now is not whether employers will report. It is whether they will use the data to do the work.
Source: Ministers to push ahead on disability pay gap reporting, while Tories describe plans as ‘grievance-mongering’, Disability News Service, 2026.
Disabled people deserve the same chance as everyone else to be rewarded fairly at work, but the fact is that pay gaps exist. Pay gap reporting will give organisations the data they need to reduce these gaps and improve fairness and inclusivity in the workplace.
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