Since gender pay gap reporting became a requirement for larger UK employers in 2017, most organisations can recite the headline figure but far fewer can point to the specific interventions that have made a measurable difference. Our Workforce 2026 survey findings capture what employers themselves see as the most effective strategies for narrowing the gap and, importantly, where the effort is landing.

Top 3 interventions for narrowing the gender gay gap

When respondents were asked which strategies they considered most successful for narrowing their gender pay gap, three options stood out:

• Improved promotion pathways (53%)
• Conducted an equal pay and structure review (52%)
• Recruited externally into senior roles (37%)

Alongside these, supported shared parental responsibility (37%) and created a gender pay gap action plan (33%) were also commonly cited.

Understanding the upper quartile progression barrier

Those top three are telling, because they map neatly onto the reality many employers see in their pay gap data: the gap is often most pronounced at the point where people move from the upper middle quartile into the upper quartile. In other words, the issue is less about “getting women in” and more about what happens when progression becomes scarcer, roles are fewer and the pipeline tightens.

Fix “sticking points” with improved promotion pathways

If you want to reduce a gender pay gap, you must be honest about where it is born. For many organisations, the gap widens when senior roles don’t turn over often. In practice, that can create a “closed shop” effect: incumbents remain in post, vacancies are limited and progression opportunities become episodic rather than planned.

Attrition plays a part here too. When progression stalls, people don’t wait indefinitely. If there are limited opportunities to step up, especially into bigger, better-paid roles, talent moves on. The irony is that employers can be doing a lot of good work at junior and mid-levels, but still see little movement in the overall pay gap because the top end remains relatively static.

What “improved promotion pathways” looks like in reality (and why it works):

• Clear criteria and visibility: people can see what “good” looks like, what experience is needed, and how decisions are made.
• Active succession planning: not just “who’s ready now?”, but “who could be ready with the right stretch opportunities?”.
• Deliberate talent movement: secondments, interim leadership, project roles, so people can build credible evidence for senior progression before the vacancy appears.

A practical test is this: if a high performer asked tomorrow, “What do I need to do to get from upper middle to upper quartile roles here?”, could the organisation answer confidently and with a visible pathway?

Address root causes through equal pay and structure reviews

It’s easy to see why 52% of respondents pointed to equal pay and structure reviews. Many pay gaps are reinforced by the shape of the organisation itself, job families that have evolved inconsistently, legacy pay decisions, unclear grading and allowances that have never been stress-tested.

A structure review, done properly, goes beyond tidying up job titles. It gives employers the chance to:

• Check role evaluation and levelling, ensuring that roles are graded consistently across functions.
• Remove pinch points: if a small number of senior roles gatekeep progression, consider whether responsibilities can be redistributed or broadened.
• Bring transparency to pay decisions: so pay progression is driven by role size and contribution, not history, negotiation confidence or inherited arrangements.

This matters even more as the direction of travel on pay transparency accelerates. Where organisations have an international footprint (or operate in markets influenced by incoming European requirements), a more transparent approach to pay structures is becoming less optional and more operationally necessary. In the UK, transparency tends to reduce the workaday irritations that, when left unaddressed, undermine trust, especially when employees can see that pay decisions are grounded in a coherent framework.

Widen the senior talent pool via external recruitment with transferable skills

External recruitment into senior roles (37%) is often the quickest lever for shifting representation at the top. In some sectors, it’s also essential. Not every organisation has a naturally steady internal pipeline into senior leadership; in fast-changing industries or highly specialised areas, the “next step up” does not always exist internally.

This is where transferable skills become critical. Organisations that broaden their lens, looking at leadership capability, commercial judgement, stakeholder influence, transformation experience, often unlock a wider senior talent pool than those recruiting on narrow “must-have done the same job before” criteria.

External hiring can:

• Break the bottleneck at the top when internal vacancies are rare.
• Inject new capability while improving representation.
• Create role models and credibility for progression pathways below.

The key is to avoid “bolt-on” senior hiring that does not connect back to the internal pipeline. External hiring should complement, not replace, meaningful progression internally.

How family leave can impact career progression and the pay gap

The quartile challenge is compounded by a pattern employers recognise. Women are still more likely to take extended family leave, and that can create a timing disadvantage. Progression often depends on being in the right place at the right time, available for the stretch role, visible in the big project, able to step in when a vacancy appears. When someone returns from leave, they can find that the organisation has moved on and the paths into senior roles have narrowed further.

This is why the survey responses on shared parental responsibility (37%) matter too. Supporting shared parental responsibility isn’t just a benefit, it is a structural intervention that helps rebalance the career impact of caring responsibilities over time.

Strategic steps for employers to narrow the gender pay gap at the top

The survey results point to a simple truth: narrowing the gender pay gap is less about one-off initiatives and more about how progression and pay structures operate at the top end. If your gap is widest between the upper middle and upper quartiles, focus your energy there:

• Make senior progression a pathway, not a waiting game (53%).
• Fix the pay and grading architecture so it holds up under scrutiny (52%).
• Use external hiring strategically to widen the senior talent pool and unblock representation (37%).

For more information on how we can help build a robust workforce strategy, please contact Sharon Broughton.

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