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GOV.UK publishes the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates and states they change on 1 April every year. From 1 April 2026 the rate is 12.71 pounds an hour for workers aged 21 and over, 10.85 pounds for those aged 18 to 20, and 8 pounds for workers under 18 and for apprentices.

The design consequence is compression. When the statutory floor rises faster than the rest of the structure, the gap between the bottom band and the one above it narrows until supervision stops being worth taking on. A structure that only moves the bottom band each April will, within a few years, have no usable middle.

Deductions are a second trap. GOV.UK states a deduction cannot normally reduce pay below the National Minimum Wage even if the worker agrees to it. Uniform charges, accommodation and salary sacrifice arrangements all need checking against the floor rather than against gross pay.

Start with roles, not people. Write level definitions that describe scope and accountability rather than years of service, then place roles into levels before looking at anybody's current salary. Doing it the other way round simply codifies whatever anomalies already exist.

Then benchmark, and be explicit about the comparator set: sector, size, region and data source. A national figure for a role that is recruited locally will mislead in both directions, and a benchmark with no stated cut date ages quietly and invisibly.

Finally, write the rules down and publish at least the principles internally. The test of a framework is whether a line manager can explain to someone why they are paid what they are paid without referring the question upwards.

GOV.UK states that any employer with 250 or more employees on a specific date each year, the snapshot date, must report their gender pay gap data, and that the information must be reported and published within a year of the snapshot date. The obligation repeats for every year the employer has at least 250 employees on its snapshot date.

The gender pay gap is a different measure from equal pay. The gap compares average pay across a whole workforce; equal pay is about men and women receiving equal pay for equal work. A structure can produce a large reported gap for distributional reasons while still paying equally for the same job, and it can also hide genuine equal pay problems inside a modest overall figure.

This is why the analysis has to go below the headline. Look at the distribution of men and women across levels and quartiles, at starting salaries for the same role, and at how much discretion managers have at offer stage, since unchecked offer discretion is where most differences begin.

Fees for framework design are normally fixed, scoped by the number of roles and levels. Benchmarking may be charged separately because survey data is bought in. Ongoing support through an annual pay review is usually a day rate or a small retainer.

The larger number is implementation. Moving people onto a new structure usually means funding a set of upward adjustments in the first year, because pay cannot simply be reduced. Model that cost before adopting the framework, and phase the adjustments if necessary.

Budget for the annual maintenance too. A framework that is not re-benchmarked and not rechecked against the April statutory rates decays into a document that managers work around rather than within.