Disability workforce and pay gap reporting

Welcome to the disability workforce and pay gap reporting hub page. Our Disability Data Monitoring Working Group drives our policy and research work in this area.

On this page, you will find our policy and research work on measuring disability related diversity, inclusion and pay in the workplace, disability data reporting projects, blogs, and media articles.

About the Disability Data Monitoring Working Group

This working group initially came together to respond to the Government consultation on disability workforce reporting in 2021, and it has stayed together ever since to follow Government policy and employer practice on the topics or disability workforce reporting, disability pay gap reporting, equal pay, and pay transparency. The group is open to anyone involved in collecting, analysing and reporting diversity workforce data in BDF’s member organisations. Roles among the group are inclusion managers, HR, governance, and workforce data analysts, and anyone else who works on diversity workforce reporting requirements in their organisations.

The group meets regularly during project periods. Meetings take place online and are usually for 90 minutes.

To become part of the working group, please get in touch with the policy team at policy@businessdisabilityforum.org.uk or speak to your BDF Business Partner. Please notes this group is for BDF Members and Partners only.

Consultation response (June 2025): The Equality (Race and Disability) Bill

In July 2024, the Government introduced a Bill to Parliament which includes the provision to mandate employers with over 250 employees to report their disability pay gap. We published a blog on our thoughts, and we since worked on the Government’s consultation about the Bill between March and June 2025. We have been working with our Disability Data Monitoring Group on our consultation response.

• Download Equality (Race and Disability) Bill consultation response
• Read blog: Why disability pay gap reporting may not lead to increasing employment opportunities for disabled people

Research (March 2025): Disability workforce and pay gap reporting: the unintended consequences and challenges

Our long-term research on disability workforce and pay gap reporting covers:

• The challenges employees experience when collecting disability workforce and pay gap data.
• The unintended consequences for disabled employees.
• The role of Board and director level requirements to report figures.
• Implications for global disability workforce data collection.
• What disabled employees feel about the language used and culture created around collecting and reporting data.
• Collecting data that really matters for creating meaningful change for disabled employees.’

2024: The impact of mandatory reporting requirements on global organisations

At BDF’s global conference in November 2024, our Director of Public and Policy and Research presented insights from global organisations on how they had been navigating data collection challenges that emerge from the UK. Read the blog here: How inclusive is disability inclusion across the globe?

Our workforce and pay gap research in the media

Our brilliant Disability Data Monitoring Working Group is the ‘engine’ behind our work in this area which has attracted many conference presentations and HR media attention. Some examples are as follows:

• On valuing diversity numbers over human experience, in People Management in June 2024: ‘As an inclusion profession we are so focused on targets that we’ve forgotten humans’
• On whether measuring disability data really does help us achieve inclusion, in Personnel Today, November 2021: Does measuring disability data really help us achieve workplace inclusion?

Guidance (2023): Beginning meaningful disability workplace reporting

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and Business Disability Forum (BDF) has worked together to create guidance for employers to start collecting disability related workforce data. At the following links, you will find information about what to consider before you begin, how to plan for collecting data, and information about the wider context of disability workforce reporting.

• Disability workforce reporting: A practical guide for people professionals (October 2023)
• The case for disability workforce reporting (October 2023)

Consultation response (2021): Disability workforce reporting consultation

In 2021, the UK Government published a consultation to consider whether employers with over 250 employees should be required to report the number of disabled people they employ. Measuring disability in this way in workforces has remained similar for almost two decades, so we felt we should challenge how much reporting has helped further inclusion so far.

You can read our full consultation response below, published in April 2022. The Government are currently analysing the responses to the consultation.