The gender pay gap in English local authorities 2024/25

• Women in English local authorities were paid 3.0 per cent less than men according to mean pay and 1.6 per cent less than men according to the median pay in 2024/25. This means that the gender pay gap has fallen since the previous financial year (2023/24) when it was 3.5 per cent and 1.7 per cent respectively. This has fallen even further when compared with 2018/19 when the mean pay gap was 6.1 per cent and the median pay gap was 4.0 per cent.
• According to median pay, in 2024/25 women were paid less than men in 160 local authorities, in 25 authorities the pay gap was zero, and in 108 authorities women were paid more than men.
• A similar proportion of women in 2024/25 were in the lower middle quartile band (64.9 per cent) and upper middle quartile band (65.0 per cent). However, the proportion of women in the upper pay quartile band was comparatively lower (57.0 per cent) as was, to a lesser extent, the proportion in the lower quartile band (59.0 per cent).
• The median gender pay gap for English local authorities (1.6 per cent) in 2024/25 was lower than NHS England (8.9 per cent) and the UK Civil service (8.5 per cent).

In the 2017/18 financial year the Government introduced a mandatory requirement for all organisations with 250 or more employees to submit certain data on their gender pay gap with a commitment to make the data available publicly. This data can be downloaded from the Government’s gender pay gap service’s web page

The key findings in this report show that the gap between the earnings of men and women in our sector is continuing to reduce. This reflects work across the sector to:

• develop innovative recruitment and retention practices
• sponsor career development programmes to increase diversity at senior levels
• support women’s participation and progress in our workplaces, for example by becoming menopause friendly employers or promoting more flexible working opportunities to all employees. 

This report summarises the 2024/25 data submitted by English local authorities at the end of the financial year. The information organisations were required to publish is the:

• difference between the mean hourly rate of pay of male full-pay relevant employees and that of female full-pay relevant employees.
• difference between the median hourly rate of pay of male full-pay relevant employees and that of female full-pay relevant employees.
• proportions of male and female full-pay relevant employees in the lower, lower middle, upper middle and upper quartile pay bands.

At the time the analysis for this report was conducted, there was a total of 292 submissions to the gender pay gap service for 2024/25, this includes six councils with fewer than 250 employees which submitted data voluntarily. One of the submissions was for two local authorities therefore the analysis in this report covers 293 local authorities in total.

The mean and median gender pay‑gap rates are calculated across an organisation’s entire workforce, without adjusting for comparisons between individuals in similar roles or pay bands. Because local government employs over 800 distinct job types, nuances in men’s and women’s pay can be concealed when only looking overall figures. In particular, the Government Equality Office (GEO) applies equal weighting to each council regardless of size, so in smaller authorities a handful of highly paid senior staff can disproportionately influence the reported gap.

Differences in organisational structure, the mix of services provided, and the degree of outsourcing all contribute to variation in pay gaps between councils. Moreover, councils have not been weighted by workforce size in these analyses, so each authority’s contribution to the overall sector‑wide figures is equal, regardless of how many people it employs. Consequently, the summary statistics in this report reflect a simple average of submissions from a diverse set of councils, smoothing over the local differences in services delivered and operating models used.

Since women are underrepresented in the highest paid roles, their lower numbers at the top end of the pay scale skew the mean more than the median. As a result, the gender pay gap measured by average (mean) earnings typically exceeds the gap measured by the midpoint (median) of the earnings distribution. The UK Statistics Authority observes that “the median is generally considered to be the better indicator of ‘average’ earnings because the mean can be skewed by fewer individuals earning more in the upper ranges. The median therefore gives a better indication of typical pay than the mean” (https://uksa.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/publication/2022-gender-pay-gap-report/pages/4/#:~:text=The%20median%20is%20generally%20considered,typical%20pay%20than%20the%20mean).

When the calculated pay gap is above zero per cent, it signifies that men earned more than women on average, a numerically ‘positive’ gap, whereas a gap below zero indicates that women’s average pay exceeded men’s, a numerically ‘negative’ gap. It is important to note that all figures in this analysis are presented exactly as submitted to the gender pay gap reporting service and have not undergone further verification or quality control.

Percentages in this report may not appear to add up to exactly 100 per cent due to rounding. 

Mean gender pay gap

This is the difference between men’s mean pay and women’s mean pay expressed as a percentage of men’s mean pay.

• On average, women were paid 3.0 per cent less than men. This has fallen by 0.5 percentage points since 2023/24 and by 3.1 percentage points since 2018/19.
• Women were, on average, paid less than men in 201 authorities, for one authority the mean pay gap was zero, and in 90 women were paid more than men.
• The largest positive mean gender pay gap in an authority was 24.4 per cent (men were paid more than women).
• The largest negative mean gender pay gap was -17.6 per cent (women were paid more than men).

Median gender pay gap

This is the difference between men’s median pay and women’s median pay expressed as a percentage of men’s median pay.

• On average, women were paid 1.6 per cent less than men. This has fallen by 0.1 percentage points since 2023/24 and by 2.4 percentage points since 2018/19.
• Women were paid less than men in 160 authorities, in 25 the median pay gap was zero, and in 108 women were paid more than men.
• The largest positive median gender pay gap in an authority was 28.9 per cent (men were paid more than women).
• The largest negative median gender pay gap was -29.4 per cent (women were paid more than men).
• Table 1 shows that 45 councils had a positive gender pay gap over 10 per cent. In comparison, 17 councils had a negative gender pay gap of less than -10 per cent.

As shown on table 2, by type of authority, the pay gap was highest in county councils (6.0 per cent) and lowest in London boroughs (0.7 per cent) and district councils (0.6 per cent).

As table 3 shows, the region with the highest median gender pay gap was the South East (3.3 per cent). The region with the with the lowest pay gap was the East Midlands (0.5%).

Proportion of men/women in each quartile pay band

The male/female composition of each pay quartile is summarised in table 4. Quartiles are the values which divide a distribution of earnings, once it has been arranged in order, into four equal parts.

• The proportion of women in the upper quartile band has remained similar since the previous financial year, increasing by 0.1 per cent to 57.3 percent in 2024/25.
• However, there was a slightly larger change in the upper middle quartile band. With the proportion of women in this quartile having increased from 62.1 per cent in 2023/24 to 62.5 per cent in 2024/25.
• There was a no change in the proportion of women in the lower middle quartile band since the previous year, remaining at 63.4 per cent in 2024/25.
• After falling from 61.1 per cent in 2018/19 to 58.7 per cent in 2023/24, the proportion of women in the lower quartile has risen fractionally to 59.0 per cent in 2024/25.

Comparisons with other sectors

These should be treated with a degree of caution as workforces can vary widely in their composition, and it is difficult to accurately identify employment sectors from the data.

• The mean gender pay gap across all UK organisations was 12.0 per cent, compared with 3.0 per cent in local authorities. (Employers with fewer than 250 employees are not required to submit gender pay gap data which may influence the gender pay gap for ‘all UK organisations’.)
• The median gender pay gap across all UK organisations was 11.3 per cent, compared with 1.6 per cent in local authorities.
• Across all organisations, women comprised 40.0 per cent of the top pay quartile band and 56.0 per cent of the lowest pay quartile, compared with 57.3 per cent and 63.1 per cent respectively in English local authorities.
• The latest median gender pay gap reported by the UK Civil Service, in 2024, was 8.5 per cent (www.gov.uk/government/statistics/civil-service-statistics-2024/statistical-bulletin-civil-service-statistics-2024#gender-pay-gap)
• The latest median gender pay gap reported by NHS England, in 2023, was 8.9 per cent (www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/gender-pay-gap-report-2023-for-nhs-england/)

Individual authority data from the gender pay gap service