Quick Hits

• Unlike England, Scotland, and Wales, Northern Ireland’s employment law is devolved, meaning the existing United Kingdom gender pay gap reporting requirements for employers with 250 employees or more do not extend to Northern Ireland.
• In February 2025, the Department for Communities in Northern Ireland concluded a twelve-week public consultation on proposed requirements to report on differences in the pay of male and female employees, i.e., the gender pay gap.

The Employment Act (Northern Ireland) 2016 introduced the concept of gender pay gap reporting in Northern Ireland, in addition to ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting and the publication of pay gap action plans. However, for much of the three-year period from 2017 until 2020, the Northern Ireland Assembly was suspended following a breakdown in power-sharing, meaning the act was not brought into force.

The proposed regulations set out in the department’s consultation document would require organisations with 250 or more employees to report annually on their gender pay gap information. However, this employee threshold is currently under review. It is proposed that in their annual pay reports, employers would need to include the mean and median gender pay gap statistics using a “snapshot date” to lessen the effects of fluctuations in the workforce. This currently follows the definition from the Office for National Statistics used in England, Scotland, and Wales, which uses an annual snapshot date of April 5 and allows results to be directly comparable. The methodology and process of calculating the gender pay gap reports are also under review.

If the proposals are adopted, employers that identify a gap must publish an action plan detailing the steps they are taking to address the gender pay gap within their organisation. The department has outlined that it does not intend to set specific requirements for the content of action plans. Instead, the department encourages employers to develop plans that align with the scale of their gender pay gap. The department also said that these plans should address the contributing factors and outline the steps being taken to address the causes that fall within the employer’s control. Employers are required to provide the action plan to all employees and trade unions, if possible.

The department states that the aim of the proposed obligations is to:

• identify gender pay gaps,
• analyse the drivers behind them,
• explore the extent to which an employer’s policies and practices may have contributed to the gaps, and
• take remedial action.

In England, Scotland, and Wales, the UK government is currently consulting on whether to extend a similar reporting framework to gender pay gap reporting for ethnicity and disability reporting. Northern Ireland also seeks to impose similar obligations for ethnicity and disability reporting, although the details of these obligations have not been set out at this stage. It is likely that a reporting framework in Northern Ireland may operate slightly differently to take into consideration Northern Ireland’s existing mandatory employee monitoring obligation regarding community background.

What’s Next?

The consultation document indicates an intention to publish draft regulations as soon as possible, but the regulation is not expected to take effect before 2027. Employers may want to prepare for the required reporting obligations sooner and could consider undertaking some pay gap analysis work mirroring the existing obligations in England, Scotland, and Wales to identify whether there are any areas that require further scrutiny.

This consultation comes as part of a broader move towards requiring employers to be more transparent about pay and pay gaps. In the European Union, Directive (EU) 2023/970 (the EU Pay Transparency Directive) sets a high standard for pay transparency and pay gap reporting across the EU and is currently undergoing implementation by member states, with some countries such as the Republic of Ireland proposing to go beyond the directive’s minimum requirements.