Comparisons are odious – or are they?

We have all become used to the grind of equal pay claims. The employee’s first port of call is the concept of ‘like work’. If that fails to impress, then the employee commonly pursues work of ‘equal value’. The latter tends to involve a laborious job evaluation exercise and the need for expert evidence.

The Court of Appeal now appears to have come up with a possible route to simplify the evidence required in ‘equal value’ claims.

In Tesco Stores v Element & Ors, [2026] EWCA Civ, around 34,000 female store workers brought equal pay claims against Tesco, arguing that their work was either ‘like work’ or work of ‘equal value’ to that of male comparators working in distribution centres.

At a lengthy fact-finding hearing, dealing with both arms, the Employment Tribunal decided that the best evidence, on the similarity of the work undertaken by both groups, was that provided by Tesco’s own training manuals.

When the matter reached the CA, there were further deliberations on what exactly a tribunal had to decide in such cases. The CA’s view was that ‘work’ is about what an employee may be required to do (not just what they happen to do on a day-by-day basis). It also held that objectively drafted training manuals reflect what an employee may be required to do unless cogent evidence is produced to negate that proposition. The CA did however leave the door open for tribunals to amalgamate training manual evidence with cogent witness evidence.

So there you have it – a rather simpler approach to adopt when considering ‘like work’ and work of ‘equal value’ under the equal pay framework.