Is the UK healthcare sector good for women? Pay gap data 2026
Healthcare is the sector women build the NHS, the care homes and the pharmacies on. Around three quarters of the NHS workforce are women, according to NHS workforce statistics, so you might expect it to be the one industry where the gender pay gap has quietly closed. It has not. The healthcare gender pay gap is smaller than the eye-watering gaps in finance, but it is stubbornly real, and the fact that it exists at all in a female-majority sector is the part worth understanding before you take a job.
This guide looks at what the numbers actually show in 2026. We cover the healthcare gender pay gap, why a sector staffed mostly by women still reports one, what the figure does and does not measure, and the concrete checks that separate a genuinely good healthcare employer for women from one with a warm mission statement. It is written for the UK and built on published figures from the Office for National Statistics and the government’s own gender pay gap service.
The healthcare gender pay gap in 2026
The ONS measures pay by industry through its Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, and it groups most healthcare work under “human health and social work activities”. Unlike finance, this sector does not sit near the top of the gender pay gap table. Its gap is closer to the middle, narrower than the all-industries median that the ONS put at 6.9% for April 2025 in some parts of the sector and wider in others. That range is the first clue: healthcare is not one employer, it is NHS trusts, private hospitals, care providers and pharmaceutical firms, and their figures look nothing alike.
The NHS is the obvious place to start, because it is the single largest employer of women in the country and it publishes its figures every year. Its overall pay gap is driven almost entirely by who holds the senior clinical and management roles rather than by unequal pay for the same job. Nursing, midwifery and healthcare assistant roles, which are overwhelmingly female, sit lower on the pay scale, while the highest paid consultant and senior manager posts have historically skewed male. Average the two together and a gap appears even though a Band 5 nurse is paid the same whatever their sex.
Pharmaceutical and medical technology firms tell a different story again. These are high-pay, research-heavy businesses whose gaps can look more like finance than like the NHS, because women thin out towards the senior science and commercial roles. When you look up a healthcare employer, check which part of the sector it belongs to before you judge the number.
Why the gap persists in a female-majority sector
The healthcare gender pay gap is a story of seniority and specialty, not identical work paid unequally. Women dominate the workforce by headcount, but they are concentrated in the roles and bands that pay less, and they thin out at the top of the clinical and leadership ladder where pay accelerates. Part-time working, which many women take on to manage caring responsibilities, is far more common in healthcare than in most sectors, and part-time roles cluster at the lower end of the scale.
This is the difference between the gender pay gap and equal pay, and it matters when you read any single figure. Equal pay is about paying men and women the same for the same work, which is the law. The gender pay gap is about the mix of roles across a whole organisation. Our guide on how to read a company’s gender pay gap figures explains how to tell the two apart, and it is especially worth reading before you judge any healthcare employer, because the female-majority workforce makes the headline number easy to misread.
Progression compounds it. Long or unsocial hours, limited flexibility in front-line clinical roles, and a shortage of senior women to progress towards all push women out at the exact points where pay rises fastest. The better employers actively work against this with flexible rostering, clear progression routes and real support for returners, which is precisely why the sector average tells you so little about any individual trust or firm.
What makes a healthcare employer genuinely good for women
The sector average is the weather, not the employer. Within healthcare you will find NHS trusts and care providers with women spread across every pay band, and pharmaceutical firms with a gap wider than 20% and almost no women in senior science roles. To judge an individual employer, look for a few concrete signals rather than the headline number alone.
Look at where women sit, not just the top-line gap. Under UK law, employers with 250 or more staff publish the share of women in each pay quartile. A hospital or care provider with women across all four quartiles is in a genuinely different place from one where they cluster in the bottom two while men fill the senior posts.
Look at the trend over several years. A gap that is narrowing shows intent and follow-through. A gap that has sat still, however respectable it looks, tells you the organisation has stopped trying.
Look for the practical markers: genuine flexible and part-time working that reaches clinical and senior roles rather than only junior ones, family leave that goes beyond the statutory minimum, real support for returners coming back from a career break, transparent banding, and visible women in senior clinical and leadership positions who rose through the organisation. For more on spotting these, our guides to finding jobs that fit you and inclusive recruitment go deeper.
How to check before you join
You do not have to guess. Every UK employer with 250 or more staff, including NHS trusts, large care providers and pharmaceutical companies, publishes its gender pay gap figures on the government service at gender-pay-gap.service.gov.uk, free to search. Look the employer up, read the median as well as the mean, check the four pay quartiles, and note whether the gap is moving in the right direction year on year. Then compare the employer with others in the same part of healthcare rather than with the whole economy, because an NHS trust and a pharma firm are not judged on the same scale.
The RecruitHer company gender scorecard does this comparison for you, pulling the published data together with the multi-year trend and a sector benchmark so you can see how a healthcare employer stacks up against its real peers. If you want the full method, read how the scorecard works. If you are weighing healthcare against another well-paid sector, our look at whether finance is good for women makes a useful comparison. The takeaway is straightforward: healthcare can be a strong and secure career for women, with real demand for skills and genuine progression, as long as you choose the employers that have done the work, and the published data lets you choose with your eyes open.
Frequently asked questions
What is the gender pay gap in UK healthcare?
Healthcare, which the ONS groups as “human health and social work activities”, reports a gender pay gap that is narrower than high-pay sectors like finance but far from closed, and it varies widely between NHS trusts, care providers and pharmaceutical firms. The all-industries median gap was 6.9% for April 2025, and individual healthcare employers sit either side of that, so always check the specific employer on the official service.
Why does healthcare have a gender pay gap if most staff are women?
Because the gap reflects which roles women hold, not unequal pay for the same job. Women make up around three quarters of the NHS workforce but are concentrated in lower and mid banded roles and part-time posts, while the highest paid senior clinical and management jobs skew male. Averaging the two together produces a gap even where pay for the same role is fair.
Is the healthcare gender pay gap the same as unequal pay?
No. Equal pay means paying men and women the same for the same work and is required by law. The gender pay gap measures the difference in average pay across a whole organisation, driven mostly by role and seniority mix. A hospital can report a gap while still paying a Band 5 nurse the same whatever their sex.
Which healthcare employers are best for women?
The ones with women across all four pay quartiles, a gap that narrows over several years, genuine flexible and part-time options that reach senior roles, strong returner support, and visible women in senior clinical and leadership positions. Check an employer’s published figures and compare them within the same part of healthcare rather than against the whole economy.
See how employers score for women on RecruitHer’s company gender scorecard.
This is educational information, not legal advice. Pay, rights and an employer’s obligations can vary by contract, role and circumstances. For impartial guidance, contact ACAS, and look up any employer’s figures on the official gender pay gap service.
Last reviewed: July 2026