A recent report by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) reveals a concerning projection for women in the UK: pay parity with men will not be achieved until the year 2056 if the current rate of progress persists. This stark finding highlights the slow pace at which the gender pay gap is narrowing, indicating that women's earnings are increasing relative to men's at a rate that would take another three decades to resolve.

Currently, the gender pay gap stands at an average of £2,548 per year. The TUC calculates that this disparity effectively means women have worked for free for the first month and a half of the year compared to their male counterparts. Paul Nowak, the TUC’s general secretary, underscored the gravity of the situation, stating, “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.”

The overall pay gap is reported at 12.8%, but this figure masks even wider discrepancies in specific sectors. For instance, women employed in the education sector earn 17% less than their male colleagues. The situation is even more pronounced in finance and insurance, where the pay gap escalates to a significant 27.2%.

Looking towards solutions, Nowak pointed to the Employment Rights Act, a piece of legislation introduced by Labour last year, as a crucial instrument to address the gender pay gap and other issues concerning employment rights. He hailed the act as "an important step forward for pay parity for women," outlining its key provisions. The legislation is designed to ban exploitative zero-hours contracts, which have been shown to disproportionately impact women and their earnings. Furthermore, it mandates that employers publish action plans specifically aimed at tackling their gender pay gaps. However, Nowak stressed that these plans must be "tough, ambitious and built to deliver real change" to be effective, warning that without such rigor, they would not succeed.

Adding another layer of complexity to the issue, research published in the British Journal of Industrial Relations last August suggested that the gender pay gap might have been underestimated for more than two decades. This research indicated that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) had failed to accurately account for the fact that its annual survey of hours and earnings (Ashe) received a disproportionately higher amount of data from larger employers, potentially skewing the reported figures and making the problem appear less severe than it truly is.

The TUC's report and the surrounding discussions paint a challenging picture for gender pay equality in the UK, emphasizing the need for sustained and robust interventions to accelerate progress beyond the current trajectory towards 2056.