Disability pay and employment gaps
The latest TUC report on the disability pay and employment gaps show the persistence of the labour market inequalities that face disabled people.
In 2023/24, the disability pay gap was £2.35 per hour (17.2 per cent). This is wider than the previous year, when it was £1.90 (14.6 per cent). The disability pay gap intersects with the gender pay gap: median hourly pay for disabled women is £4.05 less than it is for non-disabled men.
Disabled people also face higher rates of unemployment and lower rates of employment than non-disabled people. The unemployment rate for disabled workers is almost double what it is for non-disabled workers – 6.5 per cent compared to 3.6 per cent. This intersects with racial inequalities in the labour market, with disabled Black and minority ethnic (BME) workers facing a particularly high unemployment rate: 10.3 per cent, compared to 2.8 per cent for non-disabled white people.
And the employment rate for disabled people is 28.4 percentage points lower than it is for non-disabled people (53.4 per cent, compared to 81.8 per cent).
When in employment, disabled workers are more likely to be on zero-hours contracts and more likely to be in low-paid work.
Comparable data on the disability pay and employment gaps goes back to 2013. Disappointingly, not much has improved in this time. The pay gap is wider now than it was then (17.2 per cent compared to 13.2 per cent). The employment gap has narrowed, but remains high at 28.4 percentage points.
Methodology
Our labour market analysis is based on the Labour Force Survey Q3 2023 to Q2 2024 (referred to as 2023/24). This period is chosen as it makes use of the most recent data and allows for comparison with our previous analyses. When relevant, we refer to quarterly data.
Pay
The pay gap between disabled and non-disabled employees in 2023/24 is £2.35 per hour. Median hourly pay for disabled employees is £13.68, compared to £16.03 for non-disabled employees. This means that non-disabled employees earn 17.2 per cent more than disabled employees.
The pay gap has risen since the previous year (2022/23), when the pay gap was £1.90 per hour (14.6 per cent). It remains higher than it was in 2013/14, the first year of comparable data (13.2 per cent). This highlights how little progress has been made on the pay gap over the past decade.
Gender and disability
The disability pay gap intersects with the gender pay gap, with the pay gap being wider among disabled women and non-disabled men. Median hourly pay for disabled women (£13.15) is £4.05 less than it is for non-disabled men (£17.20). This shows how labour market inequalities do not exist in isolation, but instead often overlap.
Pay gaps by age
In both cash and percentage terms, the disability pay gap is widest among employees aged 35 to 39. Median hourly pay for disabled employees is higher than it is for non-disabled employees among 16- to 19-year-olds, where median pay itself is lower.
Pay gap by industry
The pay gap varies by industry, with better paid industries tending to have larger pay gaps. In past years, the finance and insurance industry has usually had the largest disability pay gap. In 2022/23, it had the largest by a distance: in cash terms, the gap was over double what it was in the industry with the second largest gap.
This year, however, professional, scientific and technical industry has the largest gap in percentage terms (22.7 per cent, or £3.98). Finance still has the largest gap in cash terms (£4.33) and is a very close second in percentage terms (22.6 per cent).
In four industries, disabled employees are paid more than non-disabled employees. Three of the four industries are industries where median pay is generally low, and the gaps are small: agriculture, accommodation and food, and arts, entertainment and recreation. One industry bucks this trend however: information and communication industry. This is a relatively well-paid industry, which in 2022/23 had the second highest disability pay gap. We would therefore treat this finding with some caution.
Pay gap by occupation
Following a similar trend to the industry breakdown, the disability pay gap is widest among higher paid occupation groups. Associate professional occupations has the widest pay gap (£2.68, 17.9 per cent), followed by managers, directors and senior officials (£2.25, 10.5 per cent).
The gap is narrowest in low paid occupation groups: elementary occupations (0 per cent), sales and customer services (1.4 per cent) and caring, leisure and other services (2.5 per cent).
Employment gap
The employment gap is the percentage point gap between the employment rates of disabled and non-disabled people.
In 2023/24, the employment rate for disabled people was 53.4 per cent, compared to 81.8 per cent for non-disabled people. This gives an employment gap of 28.4 percentage points. This is narrower than 2022/23, when it was 29.3 percentage points. While the gap has narrowed over the year, this is due to a fall in the employment rate for non-disabled people, which has fallen from 82.6 per cent in 2022/23. The employment rate for disabled people has increased by just 0.1 percentage points over the year.
The employment gap has narrowed by almost five percentage points since Q2 2013, the first quarter of comparable data, when the employment gap was 33.1 ppts. Analysis by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) shows that the main driver of the increase in disability employment since 2013 is disability prevalence, which it estimates accounts for 60 per cent of the increase.1 This means that some of the rise in employment is due to more people who are already employed becoming disabled.
The disability employment gap varies across the UK, with the narrowest gap in the South West (22.0 ppts) and the widest in Northern Ireland (42.3 ppts).
Previous TUC analysis has shown that disabled workers are more likely to be paid in low-paid occupations.2
DWP analysis has similarly found that disabled people are more likely than non-disabled people to work in low-paid jobs. It also found that disabled people are more likely to work in part-time jobs and jobs with less career opportunities. 3
- 1 The employment of disabled people 2024, GOV.UK – DWP. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/the-employment-of-disabled-people-2024/the-employment-of-disabled-people-2024
- 2 Jobs and pay monitor – disability 2023, TUC (2023). PDF. Available at: https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/2023-11/Jobs%20and%20pay%20monitor%20-%20disability%202023.pdf
- 3 The employment of disabled people 2024, GOV.UK – DWP. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/the-employment-of-disabled-people-2024/the-employment-of-disabled-people-2024
Zero-hours contracts
Disabled workers are also more likely than non-disabled workers to be employed on zero-hours contracts (4.0 per cent, compared to 2.8 per cent). 4
A breakdown by ethnicity and gender shows that this intersects with racial inequalities in the jobs market: disabled Black and minority ethnic (BME) workers are more likely to be on zero-hours contracts than non-disabled white workers (6.3 per cent, compared to 2.6 per cent).
Disabled BME women (7.0 per cent) are three times more likely than non-disabled white men (2.3 per cent) to be employed on a ZHC.
- 4 Data on zero-hours contracts is taken from Labour Force Survey Q2 2024
Unemployment
Disabled workers face a higher unemployment rate than non-disabled workers. In 2023/24, the unemployment rate for disabled workers is almost double what it is for non-disabled workers (6.5 per cent compared to 3.6 per cent). 5
As with zero-hours contracts, labour market inequalities faced by disabled people intersect with those faced by BME people. The unemployment rate for disabled BME people is 3.6 times higher than it is for non-disabled white people (10.3 per cent, compared to 2.8 per cent). In 2023/24, disabled BME men face the highest unemployment rate (11.8 per cent). This is a change on 2022/23, when it was disabled BME women who faced the highest rate. The unemployment rate for disabled BME women, however, still remains high at 9.0 per cent.
- 5 Someone is considered unemployed if they are without a job despite being “economically active”. A person is economically active if they are either in work or have been actively seeking work in the past four weeks and are available to start work in the next two weeks.
Recommendations
Government
The government must bring in legislation to introduce mandatory disability pay gap reporting for all employers with more than 50 employees.
The legislation must be accompanied by a duty on employers to produce targeted action plans identifying the steps they will take to address any gaps identified, including ensuring disabled workers with hidden impairments feel confident in completing workplace equality monitoring.
The action plans employers produce must also identify and address intersectional issues for example how they intend to ensure, and gaps identifies for disabled women are addressed.
These action plans must be produced in consultation with recognised trade unions.
Employers
Employers do not have to wait for the government to bring in mandatory disability pay gap reporting and can take steps to identify and address any gaps they have including:
collect and publish disability pay gap data in a similar manner to gender pay gap reporting, including the proportion of disabled people in each pay quarter
collect data from disabled workers and job applicants in areas including:
- recruitment and promotion
- pay and remuneration
- training
- appraisals
- grievances
- disciplinary action
- dismissals and other reasons for leaving
- use this to inform targeted action plans
- set targets for improving disabled workers’ representation at all levels of their organisation
- measure and report progress against those targets annually
- work with trade unions to establish targets and develop positive action measures to address inequalities linked to disability within the workforce.
Where an employer has identified a disability pay gap or under-representation of disabled people, they should strongly consider using positive action as a way of addressing this for example within training and/or recruitment.
This could include:
- hosting an open day specifically for disabled people to encourage them to get into a particular field.
- offering training or internships to help disabled workers get opportunities or progress at work.
Employers should consult with disabled staff and their trade unions on the best way to remove barriers and address the underlying causes of disability pay gaps, in recognising that disabled people themselves should be able to determine the solutions to the issues they face.
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