Pay and benefits
If you are doing the same work as someone else, you have the right to be paid the same as that person.
Pay does not just include your basic wage, but you should also have equal access to other benefits at work, such as:
• bonus payments
• pensions
• meal vouchers
• company cars
• company health insurance
• season ticket loans.
The Equal Pay Act relates specifically to equal pay between men and women.
However, if an employer pays someone less than others doing similar work, or refuses them benefits that other equivalent employees have access to, because of their age, gender, disability, race, religion and belief, or sexual orientation, it could constitute unlawful discrimination.
On this page
Pay rates
The Equal Pay Act says that men and women must be paid the same for doing:
• ‘like work’ – work that is the same or broadly similar
• work rated as equivalent under a job evaluation study, or
• work found to be of equal value.
The law applies to both full-time and part-time employees (see ‘Part-time and job sharing’ for more details). For example, if a female part-time employee is doing equal work to a male full-time employee she should get the same hourly rate.
Back to top^
Pay structures
You have the right to know how your pay is made up. For example, if your employer runs a bonus scheme, they must make it clear what you have to do to earn a bonus, and how the bonus is calculated.
Your employer must not discriminate against particular groups of people, for example, by giving smaller bonuses to women or people of a particular age. Ideally your employer should have some guidelines on the normal range of bonuses available.
Back to top^
Pensions
If your employer provides an occupational pension scheme, it must provide it fairly and without discriminating unlawfully.
For example, if you or your partner belongs to a pension scheme that offers benefits to married partners, it must also offer the same benefits to civil partners. If the scheme offers benefits to unmarried heterosexual couples who live together, it must offer the same benefits to unmarried same-sex couples who live together.
Under the Disability Discrimination Act, every occupational pension scheme has a ‘non-discrimination’ rule that places trustees and pension fund managers under similar duties as employers not to treat you less favourably if you have a disability or serious health condition.
Employers can make rules based on age in the pension schemes they offer without being guilty of unlawful discrimination.
Back to top^
Benefits in kind
Benefits that have a monetary value, such as company cars or private health insurance, must be provided fairly and without discrimination.
For example, if you have a disability and because of this your employer refuses to let you join the company’s private health insurance scheme on the same terms as non-disabled colleagues, they must produce evidence to justify this decision.
Back to top^
Length of service
Employers can provide some benefits which increase with length of service, but only up to five years. In certain circumstances a company may offer benefits which continue to accrue beyond five years, but the company must show that such a policy can be objectively justified.
You can find out more about equal pay from the former Equal Opportunities Commission’s code of practice on equal pay.
The Acas website has answers to many of the most common questions on equal pay.
Back to top^