Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Partner gender pay gaps widen as UK law firms shun transparency; lockstep and under-representation hinder progress

Published on: 21 August 2025

Published by a Law360 reporter

Legal News

Article summary

By law, employers must publish pay gap figures solely for their staff, leaving law firms to choose if and how they reveal disparities within partnerships. This flexibility materially hampers like-for-like comparisons over time and obscures any sense of progress, as firms can alter how they present their numbers or drop publication entirely. In 2024, 39 of the 111 firms reviewed by Law360 voluntarily shared a business-wide median pay gap—a weighted blend of partner and employee gaps—across their operations. The average stood at 33.8%, versus 26.7% for employees alone during the same period. Of the 51 firms that issued a separate partner-only gap for 2024, the median was 24.7%, an increase of 2.8 percentage points on 2023 figures. Female representation in partnerships also trails noticeably. Women account for just 37% of partners in the UK, according to data from the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Experts note that the lockstep model—where partner remuneration depends on seniority—means many firms are effectively waiting for men, who comprise two-thirds of full equity partners, to retire so that junior women can be promoted to take their place and fill those roles...

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