Kent Councils Gender Pay Gap League Table: Which Employers Favour Men, Women or Neither?

Kent’s council gender pay gap story is no longer a simple tale of men doing better everywhere. In some authorities the median gap still clearly favours men. In some it is effectively neutral. In others it now favours women. That is what makes the latest county picture more interesting than the boilerplate equality statements that usually accompany it: Kent’s local authorities are moving in very different directions under the same national reporting regime.

The first point to get straight is what the figure means. The statutory measure used here is the median hourly gender pay gap. On the official service, a positive percentage means men’s hourly pay is higher than women’s, a negative percentage means women’s pay is higher, and a zero figure is neutral. This is not the same thing as an equal-pay audit. It does not ask whether a man and a woman doing the same job are paid the same. It shows whether the middle-paid man and the middle-paid woman in an organisation are paid differently, which makes it a structural measure of how an employer’s workforce is stacked.

On the latest full Kent-wide 2025/26 figures, Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council had the widest men-favoured median gap at 28.45%. Dartford followed on 20.35%. Then came Swale on 11.7%, Kent County Council on 10.6% and Tunbridge Wells on 10.51%. Ashford also remained clearly men-favoured on 9.1%. In plain English, those councils still have men paid more at the median.

The middle of the table is where the story stops behaving neatly. Medway stood at 3.5% in men’s favour. Canterbury and Folkestone & Hythe both sat exactly on 0.0%, which is as close to neutral as a league table can get. Then the direction flips. Dover was 2.0% in women’s favour, Maidstone 2.8% in women’s favour, Gravesham 10.2% in women’s favour, Sevenoaks 10.14% in women’s favour, and Thanet 16.92% in women’s favour. Kent is not showing one pattern. It is showing three.

That is why the latest league table matters. It is not simply a list of winners and losers. It shows that some councils still have a recognisable old-style pay structure, with men ahead at the median. Some have flattened the gap altogether. Others now run in the opposite direction. For a county operating inside the same public-sector framework, this is a striking split.

The longer view is just as revealing. Thanet has moved the furthest across the reporting period, swinging from a men-favoured 5.8% in 2017/18 to a women-favoured 16.92% in 2025/26. Dover also crossed the line, moving from a men-favoured 8.7% to a women-favoured 2.0%. Maidstone did the same, shifting from a men-favoured 4.9% to a women-favoured 2.8%. Those are not cosmetic tweaks. They are changes in direction.

Other councils have improved without changing sides. Ashford narrowed from 23.6% in men’s favour in 2017/18 to 9.1% in 2025/26. Kent County Council moved from 18.2% to 10.6%. Swale fell from 21% to 11.7%. Medway moved from 9.4% to 3.5%. Those are meaningful reductions, even though the median still favours men in each case.

Then there are the councils where the old pattern has barely loosened its grip. Tonbridge & Malling had the widest men-favoured gap at the start point I used and it still has the widest men-favoured gap now. Dartford has improved, but not enough to escape the same broad conclusion. Tunbridge Wells has edged the wrong way across the span, ending more men-favoured in 2025/26 than it was at the 2017/18 starting point.

For Kent, that leaves a much more awkward picture than a single annual league table can show on its own. Some councils are still plainly men-favoured. Some have reached neutral ground. Some now favour women at the median. The real question is no longer whether Kent has a council gender pay gap story. It clearly does. The better question is why councils working under the same reporting rules can end up looking so radically different.

The Shepway Vox Team

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