Menopause Action Plans: what the law actually requires
A plain-English guide to the Equality Action Plan provisions of the Employment Rights Act 2025 — who is in scope, what has to be published, and how to decide what to commit to.
Updated August 2026
8 minute read
Contents
- What the law says
- Who is in scope
- The key dates
- The six action areas
- Publishing and sign-off
- Choosing your actions
- Demonstrating progress
- Northern Ireland
What the law says
The Employment Rights Act 2025 introduces a requirement for larger employers to publish an Equality Action Plan. The plan covers two areas: gender pay gap and menopause. This guide deals with the menopause element.
The requirement is deliberately light-touch in its minimum form. An employer must set out the steps it is taking to support employees experiencing menopause, choosing at least one action from six areas described in government guidance.
Who is in scope
Employers with 250 or more employees. This is the same threshold and broadly the same population that already files gender pay gap reports, so most organisations in scope will already be familiar with the reporting cycle and the portal.
If you are close to the threshold
Headcount fluctuates. If you are approaching 250 employees it is worth preparing on the assumption you will be in scope, rather than discovering you are with weeks to spare.
The key dates
Date
What happens
Status
April 2026
Voluntary publishing opens alongside gender pay gap data
In effect now
Spring 2027
Requirement expected to become mandatory
Subject to legislation
Annually thereafter
Plans republished against prior commitments
Expected
The mandatory date remains subject to legislation, and further government guidance has been expected. We update this page as the position develops.
The six action areas
Government guidance sets out six menopause-specific actions. An employer must commit to at least one:
- Train managers to support employees experiencing menopause
- Provide access to occupational health advice
- Create menopause support groups or networks
- Offer workplace adjustments
- Conduct a menopause risk assessment
- Review workplace policies and procedures
Guidance is clear that employers should choose the actions that best address the barriers identified within their own organisation. It does not, however, require them to identify those barriers first — and that is where most published plans will fall down.
Publishing and sign-off
Plans are published on the government gender pay gap portal, in the same place and on the same cycle as pay gap data. Each plan must be signed off by a named director.
A thin action plan is worse than no action plan. It is a public document, carrying a named director’s signature, that your own staff and future candidates will read.
That is the practical risk. A plan committing to the cheapest available action, with nothing behind the choice, is a statement about the organisation that will be read by exactly the people best placed to judge whether it is true.
Choosing your actions
The decision is genuinely difficult, because the six actions address quite different problems. Manager training does nothing for an organisation whose managers are already confident but whose policy is silent on adjustments. A policy review does nothing where the policy is sound but nobody knows it exists.
This is what a diagnostic is for. Our instruments consistently find gaps that leadership did not know existed — most often between what HR believes is in place and what the workforce reports experiencing.
If the evidence shows
The likely action
Why
Managers unsure how to respond
Train managers
Capability is the most common high-impact gap
Staff unaware support exists
Review policies and communication
Provision without visibility changes nothing
Environmental complaints recurring
Conduct a risk assessment
Identifies practical, fixable friction
Low disclosure despite good intent
Support groups or networks
Psychological safety, not policy, is the barrier
Demonstrating progress
Because plans republish annually against prior commitments, the second year asks a harder question than the first: did it work?
An employer with no baseline cannot answer it. An employer who tied each committed action to a measurable indicator — a specific survey question, a policy audit score, a risk rating — can answer it with evidence, and publish the movement.
Northern Ireland
These provisions apply to Great Britain only
Employment law is devolved in Northern Ireland, and the Employment Rights Act 2025 provisions do not extend there. Northern Ireland employers are not required to publish a Menopause Action Plan. Many choose to anyway — and we have written a separate guide on why, and what good practice looks like outside the statutory framework.
Free Readiness Checklist
A one-page checklist covering everything a credible Menopause Action Plan needs, and where most employers fall short.
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Related Insights
Menopause Action Plans in Northern Ireland
Why NI employers are out of scope, and what to do about it
What the six action areas actually mean in practice
A breakdown of each, and when it is the right choice
Why manager capability is the most common gap
What our organisational audits consistently find