Corporate report

Equality in UK Health Security Agency 2025: how UKHSA met the Public Sector Equality Duty in 2024 to 2025

Updated 9 October 2025

Introduction

This is the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA)’s annual report on our approach to meeting our duties under the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) as set out in the Equality Act 2010, outlining the actions taken over the reporting period to deliver UKHSA’s 2023 to 2026 equality objectives.

Achieving more equitable health security outcomes is a cross-cutting priority for UKHSA. Tailoring health protection efforts for the people and places most at risk is fundamental to delivering our mission as an organisation and to supporting Government’s goal to improve people’s chances of living well for longer.

Building a truly diverse workforce and a culture of openness and inclusivity is also a key priority for UKHSA, recognising that difference drives innovation to best meet the needs of its workforce and the communities we serve.

Equality Act 2010

The Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) in section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 applies to public authorities and others that carry out public functions. It ensures that public authorities consider the needs of all individuals in their day-to-day work in shaping policy, in delivering services and in relation to their own employees.

The PSED has 3 constituent parts. It requires public authorities to have due regard to the need to:

• eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010
• advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it
• foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it

The protected characteristics covered by the equality duty are:

• age
• disability
• gender reassignment
• marriage and civil partnership (but only in respect of eliminating unlawful discrimination)
• pregnancy and maternity
• race (this includes ethnic or national origins, colour or nationality)
• religion or belief
• sex
• sexual orientation

The general Equality Duty is supported by 2 specific duties which require public bodies such as UKHSA to:

• publish information to show their compliance with the PSED
• set and publish equality objectives, at least every 4 years

UKHSA’s PSED equality objectives for 2023 to 2026

UKHSA’s PSED objectives for 2023 to 2026 are published on GOV.UK. These distinguish between those related to staff and to the wider public. These aim to ensure that equality considerations are built into organisational processes, practices and ways of working.

PSED objectives align with the areas of focus set out in the UKHSA Health Equity for Health Security Strategy.

UKHSA’s equality aims go beyond its duties under PSED. We use an adapted version of the CORE20PLUS framework, developed by NHS England (NHSE), to define our focus on parts of the population most at risk from external hazards to health. CORE20 is the most deprived 20% of the national population as identified by the Index of Multiple Deprivation. The PLUS element depends on the hazard in question and on local factors, but populations we expect to see identified under this framework include those with protected characteristics, inclusion health groups and individuals with clinical vulnerabilities.

UKHSA’s PSED equality objectives

1. We will use the CORE20PLUS framework to improve our data and evidence on vulnerable population groups, including those with protected characteristics across all UKHSA strategic priority areas.

2. We will build the evidence base for effective ‘people and place’ interventions that address concurrent risk through models of delivery of health protection services for CORE20PLUS population groups.

3. We will partner with people with lived experience of inclusion health, the voluntary and community sector, health agencies and other government departments to co-create effective interventions and build trust.

4. We will build capability and awareness of health equity and the public sector equality duty across UKHSA to ensure we design and deliver our functions and services in a way which improves equitable health security outcomes.

Progress against UKHSA’s PSED equality objectives for 2023 to 2026 during the year 2024 to 2025

The second year (2024 to 2025) of the Health Equity for Health Security Strategy centred on embedding health equity work and developing outputs to support the business (through guidance and other products).

Progress on objective 1:  Data and Science

Building the evidence and data on CORE20PLUS populations, including data for those with protected characteristics, is vital to enable us to routinely identify the people and places most at risk in our data. It will enable us and our partners to target and tailor interventions and monitor inequalities over time.

PSED objective: expand evidence available to UKHSA staff on populations identified through the CORE20PLUS framework

In 2024 to 2025, we strengthened the evidence base on the disproportionate impact of health threats on certain populations. We undertook targeted research to map current health protection inequalities in England. We published findings in the Health Inequalities in Health Protection Report to inform partners across the system of the impact of infectious disease and environmental hazards on inequalities by ethnicity, deprivation, geography and for inclusion health groups.

PSED objective: review surveillance outputs and expand activity to capture data on ethnicity and deprivation where possible, and on inclusion health status and settings (for example, prisons or adult social care) where relevant and possible

Among the homeless, those with various protected characteristics are disproportionately represented compared to the UK population, including those aged 16 to 34, and those with a disability. Two-thirds of homeless people are male. We have been developing approaches to identifying homeless hostels within surveillance data and in identifying people experiencing homelessness within datasets. We have been collaborating on a National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) project to link homeless datasets to hospital, mortality and surveillance data.

96% of the UK prison population is male and ethnic minorities are represented in higher levels than in the general population. We have developed a consistent method to identify prison populations in routine data sets and we have been using this to help enhance surveillance, including:

• examining inequalities in admissions for COVID-19 and influenza amongst prison populations compared to the general community
• identifying for the first time prison populations within anti-microbial resistance (AMR) data, showing patterns of infection and resistance
• analysing earth observation data for prisons to understand the impacts of extreme heat on different prison sites

PSED objective: build questions regarding impact on vulnerable and high-risk populations into relevant evaluations to inform learning, working this into planned activity

We have developed the capability to identify outbreaks, incidents and cases of infectious disease in health and justice settings in a new Case and Incident Management System (CIMS). Data from this can be used to strengthen updates that we share on epidemiological information on health protection incidents with key national health and justice stakeholders, including NHS England and HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) to inform their activity.

We have developed a dashboard for internal use which enable improved monitoring of outbreaks and other incidents affecting care homes registered to provide care for different needs (for example, learning disability, older age, dementia). This highlights the impact of outbreaks on those with protected characteristics, for example age and disability. The dashboard continues to be developed further to improve its usefulness.

Progress on Objective 2: People and Place

We work with partners to build the evidence on what works; co-creating accessible guidance, communications, and models of care to address health protection needs and piloting these to determine effectiveness, including cost effectiveness. By evaluating and sharing our findings with partners, we aim to generate commitment to evidence based integrated and person-centred approaches.

PSED objective: develop and pilot delivery models for health protection services for CORE20PLUS groups

We have piloted approaches for specific population groups, which are informing policy at local, regional and national levels of government.

We partner with Universities via Health Protection Research Units (HPRUs), which are funded through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) to implement multi-disciplinary health protection research. This includes modelling; intervention development and evaluation; economics; and tools and frameworks.

To strengthen the effectiveness of public health messaging, we worked in partnership with DHSC and NHSE to tailor our vaccine materials, creative and campaign media to ensure reach and relevance to underserved communities, including ethnic minorities where uptake is and communities with higher levels of deprivation. To achieve this, we ensured imagery, media partners and social media ambassadors provided diverse representation, particularly of Black and South Asian communities. We also tailored and translated messaging via community radio and TV partnerships, to better reach ethnic minority audiences. Areas with higher levels of deprivation received increased advertising investment.

We developed highly accessible content, including vaccine timeline postcards for the childhood and maternal vaccine schedule and a new suite of maternal vaccine materials for stakeholders, translating versions in up to 29 languages.

We worked closely with partners such as the British Islamic Medical Association (BIMA), the Caribbean African Health Network and South Asian Health Action to deliver culturally sensitive messaging via trusted voices to their audiences. We also targeted media outreach to local and community outlets, in partnership with BIMA and ahead of the Hindu festival of Diwali, to encourage vaccine uptake.

This led to significant overall recognition for the vaccine campaign among eligible multicultural audiences, with, for example, 78% (the highest to date for this audience) recognising the 2024 to 2025 winter campaign.

Of those that recognised the campaign:

• 20% of eligible multicultural audiences reported they booked an appointment for a flu or COVID-19 vaccine after seeing the winter campaign
• 58% checked their child’s vaccinations were up to date
• 43% contacted their GP surgery after seeing the childhood immunisations campaign

PSED objective: strengthen the approach to improving outcomes for high-risk populations through incident response structures

A toolkit has been developed to provide tools and guidance on processes, roles and responsibilities to ensure that health equity and PSED are considered from the earliest stages of an incident response.

We used this in several incidents in the 2024 to 2025 year, including clade I mpox, where the toolkit was used to identify populations who may be disproportionately impacted by the incident and informed actions including engagement with affected communities on vaccine eligibility and awareness of symptoms.

PSED objective: apply evidence on health inequalities to each workstream of the future of the health protection system co-design group

We have embedded health equity via the Future of the Health Protection System (FHPS) Co-Design Group. The FHPS programme is grounded in the principals of co-design, underpinned by a clear commitment to health equity in health protection outcomes.

Achievements in 2024 to 2025 included the publication of the NHS England guidance for Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) on clinical response to local incidents and outbreaks of infectious disease. and the sector improvement guidance published by the Association of Directors of Public Health (ADPH) What Good Looks Like, Assurance Framework and Quality Improvement Framework, all of which focus on ensuring that health equity is central to high quality health protection response.

Progress on Objective 3: Partnerships

We continue to build and strengthen our partnerships at national, regional, local and community levels to support the delivery of equity in health protection.

We work in partnership at a national level; working with NHS England and DHSC, as well as other government departments including the Home Office, Ministry of Housing and Local Government, HMPPS and the Department of Education to deliver care and improve services for specific populations.

Regionally, we have been supporting local authorities and integrated care boards (ICBs) to address inequalities, including working with local authorities to deliver people and place and based interventions.

PSED objective: ensure evidence on health security for vulnerable and at-risk populations is available to other partners in the health system to provide a sound basis for collaboration, to agree priorities and deliver integrated and inclusive services that advance health equity for health security

The UKHSA 2025 conference showcased a range of evidence and initiatives with health protection partners on topics including tailoring the health protection response across adult social care; considering children and young people in health protection and pandemic planning; a deep dive into health equity in prisons; and achieving impact through engaging with communities to deliver health security.

We are a co-signatory of the National Partnership Agreements to improve the quality of healthcare services for people in adult prisons, the Children and Young People Secure Estate and Immigration Removal Centres. Through this, we have strengthened advice, guidance and communications on sexual health and TB for people in prisons.

PSED objective: build and maintain assurance that UKHSA is meeting its legal obligations around PSED and delivering our work on reducing health inequalities

From 2023 to 2026 we worked collaboratively to create more stretching PSED objectives aligned to the three-year Health Equity strategy and associated action plan. These revised PSED objectives, aligned with our Health Equity for Health Security Strategy, were published in February 2024.

Work to deliver the Health Equity for Health Security Strategy, launched in June 2023, has been overseen by the cross organisational Health Equity Board, which meets bi-monthly. The Strategy has informed our PSED objectives for 2023 to 2026, with the board providing oversight on progress against these objectives. Further oversight and steer have been provided by our Executive Committee, our advisory board and its Equalities Ethics and Communities Sub Committee.

PSED objective: develop strong partnerships and routes to engage with the people identified through the CORE20PLUS framework and the voluntary and community sector to enable co-creation and implementation of effective interventions

We have continued to build our partnerships with communities, to build trust and improve the effectiveness of interventions. We have worked closely with community organisations and people with lived experience to gather insights from communities affected by specific incidents, and to co-create enhanced public health messaging, such as communication campaigns on antimicrobial resistance and vaccination, and to inform incident communication such as mpox.

We also work in collaboration with DHSC and NHS England to deliver the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) Health and Wellbeing Alliance which enables the sector to share its expertise with the health system and have delivered impact across the health system including this impact report.

We have developed and implemented a consistent community engagement approach, working directly with communities to inform and co-create key initiatives. This strengthened communications and guidance for effective, tailored interventions to reduce health inequalities.

Over the past year, we engaged around 400 people with lived experience and 22 VCSE organisations. This included engaging on tailoring mpox messaging with sex workers and the East African diaspora; co-creation of measles and pertussis communications with Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller communities; and testing and refining the national AMR campaign with community input.

Feedback from partners shows growing trust and stronger relationships, enhancing our reach and insight.

Progress on Objective 4: Culture (public-facing impacts)

We strive to equip our workforce with the capabilities to deliver equitable health security outcomes and ensure all disciplines have the knowledge, awareness and skills to play their role in tackling health inequalities. We have sought to strengthen and tailor training to ensure that we equip staff across our organisation’s functions.

PSED objective: deliver training, awareness raising, and ongoing guidance across UKHSA on health equity, CORE20PLUS groups and PSED

We offer training on PSED as part of staff induction with further upskilling offered to existing staff. In 2024 to 2025, nearly 700 colleagues accessed live training on PSED, including through tailored sessions for different audiences such as staff networks. Nearly 2000 colleagues also undertook online Civil Service training on the legislation for diversity and inclusion and the Equality Act 2010, in 2024 to 2025.

Our internal webpages supporting how to consider inequalities in our work generate around 300 unique hits monthly, helping to increase understanding and awareness across UKHSA.

PSED objective: support colleagues to deliver by documenting and sharing learnings from across the organisation on efforts to achieve more equitable outcomes through internal and external communications

A dedicated team provides tailored support to guide staff in giving appropriate due regard to the PSED and addressing health inequalities. All staff are able to learn from how others have considered PSED by consulting a repository of Equality Impact Assessments (EIAs) and consult internally published advice and guidance on embedding health equity and meeting PSED.

PSED objective: systematically embed explicit health equity and public sector equality duty considerations in UKHSA processes, policies, and planning processes to ensure they prompt colleagues to make decisions that positively impact health equity.

Achieving more equitable outcomes is a cross-cutting goal in our Strategic Plan. To ensure as an organisation that equalities impacts are consistently considered, we have embedded health equity and PSED across key processes and procedures, including business planning and the agency’s performance monitoring.

Oversight and steer have been provided by the committees and boards described under Progress on Objective 3: Progress on Partnerships, above.

Progress on objective 5: Culture (staff-facing impacts)

We recognise that a workforce that reflects the diverse nature of our population is more likely to enable UKHSA to succeed in its ambitions. We aim to nurture and sustain an inclusive and respectful culture and working environment, which values and respects diversity, where everyone can thrive, achieve their potential, and advance their careers. We will continue to invest in a talented workforce that represents the diversity of the working population. In 2024 to 2025 we will:

• continue to strengthen the completion, collation, and monitoring of diversity information about our staff
• by driving up declaration rates, enhance our evidence base and insights, and use this information to develop our future strategic priorities and action plans
• set and monitor key performance indicators to enable us to track progress and show improvement

D&I strategic priorities

Our work on Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) is evidence based, underpinned by data, research, and engagement, and informed by our people and their experiences.

Our D&I strategic priorities outline our approach. The priorities are set across 3 themes:

1. Inclusive values and experience

We continue to build an organisation where everyone is welcome and feels they belong and where we treat each other with respect and tolerance. We work to ensure that D&I is embedded in all our workforce and people practices and support our leaders to role model inclusion so that diversity of thought and alternative perspectives can benefit the organisation and the communities we serve.

2. Culture and engagement

We value and invest in all our staff and work with our staff networks to support awareness campaigns, inclusion and learning events. We work in partnership across our People and Workplace and Health Equity teams, our networks and our D&I champions and sponsors and encourage their involvement at a cross-government level, ensuring we continue to learn and respond as an organisation.

3. Evidence and governance

We take a data-driven, evidence-led and delivery focussed approach on everything that we do. To support our leaders in delivering against their D&I objectives we continue to develop our D&I dashboard and key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor and narrate our progress as an organisation and report openly in line with our governance process for D&I. The diversity dashboard presents an entire workforce profile (employees only), and the workforce composition of each group, disaggregated by age, ethnicity, disability, gender, and sexual orientation. The dashboard is updated and published quarterly internally and is shared with key stakeholders to initiate helpful conversations, which seek to identify useful next steps to address observable imbalances and/or drive action.

Governance

Everyone in UKHSA has responsibility for creating a diverse and inclusive culture, however ultimate responsibility sits with our chief executive. In this they are supported by our executive team and leadership teams in tackling any identified inequalities. All senior civil servants (SCS) have a mandatory D&I objective.

All staff networks have an executive committee sponsor and a SCS network champion. The champions act to provide senior accountability for the delivery of network action plans aligned to the D&I strategy and are instrumental in supporting D&I activities.

The Talent and Inclusion team meets monthly with network chairs and champions and report 6 monthly to the Performance and Operations Committee and/or Executive Committee.

The section below sets out how we have met the specific public sector equality duty to:

1. Eliminate discrimination
2. Advance equality of opportunity
3. Foster good relations

1. Eliminating discrimination

Benchmarks

UKHSA is a Disability Confident Level 3 Leader and has Level 2 Carer Confident Accreditation. Both schemes support the organisation to meet the needs of our staff.

Bullying harassment and discrimination (BHD)

In addition to the deliverables outlined in our inclusion plan, we continue our commitment to reduce bullying harassment and discrimination and have developed and implemented a Working Better Together workshop, designed to improve workplace culture and support our organisational values. The targeted workshops facilitate staff to discuss and agree appropriate workplace behaviours. As part of the workshop staff are also encouraged to agree and implement their own team values.

Gender pay gap

Our UKHSA gender pay gap report for 2023/2024 was published on 17 December 2024, as part of the wider Department of Health and Social Care health family report.

Staff networks

We continue to support our wide range of staff networks and wellbeing networks.

All staff networks have an action plan aligned to the D&I strategic priorities and by March 2025 network membership increased by 28% against a 10% target.

Networks continue to play an active part in creating and developing our culture and have facilitated and delivered collective learning, development opportunities and events to support their members.

Wellbeing

Supporting our workforce’s health and wellbeing is vital to delivering UKHSA’s corporate priorities, particularly during national incidents. UKHSA offers a comprehensive Health and Wellbeing programme, including an Employee Assistance Programme and Occupational Health Advice. The Health and Wellbeing team collaborates with key stakeholders to provide services that support staff’s mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing.

Mental Health First Aiders and Wellbeing Champions volunteer across the organisation, fostering a supportive culture. Staff can access dedicated networks and cafés, such as Menopause and Endometriosis Cafés, the Men’s Health Forum, Cancer Network, and Grief and Bereavement Cafés, providing safe spaces for shared experiences and peer support.

Wellbeing initiatives are guided by insights from data dashboards, surveys, and staff feedback to ensure effectiveness. Employees are encouraged to write blogs and articles to share experiences, raise awareness, and promote inclusion.

Managers receive training to support staff wellbeing, equipping them with knowledge of resources, policies, and interventions. Senior leaders play a key role by modelling positive wellbeing behaviours and fostering safe, supportive work environments by implementing the UKHSA Wellbeing Charter.

2. Advancing equality of opportunity

Apprenticeships

We actively promote a wide range of apprenticeships from new entry to master’s level, building opportunities for all employees to realise career aspirations, as well as diversifying UKHSA’s resourcing and filling of skills gaps.

Apprenticeships within UKHSA are regularly reviewed, and we work across the business and with delivery partners to design offers mapped to specific professional career pathways. This enables clear evidence to be gathered on uptake and employee journeys.

Learning and development

We provide an inclusive learning environment, which is driven by an evidence-based approach and continuous evaluation of our products.

The Impactful Manager Programme - our internal line manager development programme - includes a module on ‘Leading Inclusive Teams’ and has our organisational values ‘Impactful, Insightful and Inclusive’ running through as a golden thread. The Civil Service Line Manager Standards have been embedded in the line manager pathway across the organisation, with the Civil Service code at the core.

Our mandatory training requires all staff to undertake the Civil Service Expectations learning. Completion rates and activity is driven by quarterly reporting to senior leaders and human resources business partners (HRBPs) to continue to drive awareness and understanding in an organisation which is committed to inclusion.

Where content is digital, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines apply to ensure this type of content adopts industry best practice, with much of this work undertaken within Civil Service Learning teams at Cabinet Office in partnership with the service providers.

UKHSA has invested in the creation of a human-centred design learning and development offer which includes a coaching, mentoring and job shadowing programme, placing an understanding of lived experience at the centre of problem solving, policy making, and service product design. UKHSA is undertaking a programme of work to build and invest in a learning culture to support Strategic Priority 6 - building a high performing agency - recognising that a diverse and upskilled workforce is fundamental to this.

Leadership

UKHSA have launched a Leadership Expectations Framework, which focuses on accountability of leaders to support and advocate equality of opportunity for all under the lens of leading self, others, and the organisation.

The expectations provide a structure for an inclusive and accountable Senior Civil Service Community in the organisation.

The Teams and Leadership 360 review platform provides the opportunity for leaders to seek anonymous feedback on their leadership style and fosters adoption of inclusive leadership practice where all voices are heard.

Talent

At UKHSA, we take an inclusive approach to talent, recognising the diversity of insight, strengths, and skills our people bring is what enables us to be a scientific and operational leader in health security. We take an evidence-based approach in identifying and developing the diverse talent, skills, and experience to deliver against the UKHSA strategic plan and for the citizens we serve.

Our focus is on developing people to build a workforce that is empowered, well-informed about their choices, and actively engaged in their growth. Recognising that development is wider than promotion.

To achieve this, we are implementing an inclusive talent management approach to support all employees to take ownership of their career and have effective career conversations. The approach will equip line managers with the skills to facilitate these discussions and support their teams to identify the right opportunities to develop.

We offer a range of development and leadership programmes, and our employees have access to an enhanced talent development offer that empowers everyone at UKHSA to reach their potential. This includes Accelerate, our in-house positive action development programme aimed at staff who identify as having a disability or are from an ethnic minority background. We also offer cross government schemes such as the Future Leaders, Senior Leaders schemes, and Beyond Boundaries.

Professional communities

UKHSA has an established a Head of Profession network to provide the most effective approach to the diverse professional communities in UKHSA and the professional development all staff. There is proactive work in collaboration around career pathways, talent, performance, accreditation, professional registration, and development opportunities to ensure that UKHSA has a flourishing culture for all to develop professionally.

3. Fostering good relations

Communication

We continue to make D&I visible across UKHSA, supported by a comprehensive communications and engagement plan. The plan outlines staff network activity aligned to key dates to raise awareness, celebrate success and engage with our staff on D&I.

Working in partnership with our Content and Internal Communications teams we have refreshed our intranet page to provide clear progress report and signposting. Between 1 March 2024 and 1 April 2025 we published 102 blogs, 118 news stories and held 73 events.

Diversity Data Declaration Campaign

We recognise that a workforce that reflects the diverse nature of our population is more likely to enable UKHSA to succeed in its ambition. Last year we ran a year-long diversity data declaration campaign. The aim of the campaign was to increase our average declaration rates to 81.5%, bringing them in line with the Civil Service Average. Between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025 our average declaration rate increased from 76% to 81.4%, an increase of 5.4%.

Focus Inclusion

An area of focus has been the development and delivery of our Focus Inclusion sessions. The purpose of the sessions is to:

• raise awareness of the Civil Service model of inclusion
• ensure we have consistent messaging about inclusion
• encourage all staff to complete the Civil Service mandatory expectations training
• encourage all staff to check and update their diversity data
• support UKHSA in continuing to build an inclusive workplace culture that enhances our performance

Between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025, we maintained our People Survey score for inclusion and fair treatment within 2 percentage points, and 80% of our workforce had completed their Civil Service Expectations mandatory training against a target of 80%.

Annexe 1. UKHSA staff characteristics

Statistics are taken from the UKHSA Human Resources and Payroll system (also called Money and People System (MaPs)). The following two tables present information on the proportion of staff on whom details of a particular protected characteristic is currently held.

Figure 1. Proportion UKHSA employees who have declared each of the protected characteristics, March 2025

Percentage	March 2024	June 2024	September 2024	December 2024	March 2025
Ethnicity	83%	85%	87%	87%	88%
Disability	77%	79%	80%	80%	81%
Religion and belief	73%	76%	77%	78%	79%
Sexual orientation	71%	74%	76%	76%	78%

Figure 2. Proportion UKHSA employees who have declared each of the protected characteristics (excluding ‘Prefer not to say’), March 2025

Percentage	March 2024	June 2024	September 2024	December 2024	March 2025
Ethnicity	78%	80%	82%	82%	83%
Disability	53%	56%	58%	59%	60%
Religion and belief	65%	68%	69%	70%	71%
Sexual orientation	63%	65%	67%	67%	68%

Figure 3. Gender profile of UKHSA staff, March 2025

Gender	Percentage of UKHSA staff
Female	64.9%
Male	35.1%

Figure 4. Age profile of UKHSA staff, March 2025

Age	Profile
16 to 19	0.1%
20 to 29	17.7%
30 to 39	27.4%
40 to 49	26.2%
50 to 59	19.8%
60 to 64	6.1%
65 and over	2.7%

Figure 5. Distribution of UKHSA staff by ethnic group, March 2025

Ethnicity	Percentage
White	72.0%
Asian	14.3%
Black	8.9%
Mixed	2.8%
Other ethnic group	1.3%
Chinese	0.7%

Figure 6. Disability status profile of UKHSA staff, March 2025

Category	Percentage
Not disabled	89.5%
Disabled	10.5%

Figure 7. Religion and belief profile reported by UKHSA staff, March 2025

Religion or belief	Percentage
Christianity	42.1%
Atheism	26.3%
Other	8.9%
No faith	7.7%
Islam	7.1%
Hinduism	4.7%
Sikhism	0.9%
Judaism	0.8%
Jainism	0.4%
Humanism	0.2%

Figure 8. Sexual orientation reported by UKHSA staff, March 2025

Sexual orientation	Percentage
Heterosexual	92.2%
Bisexual	3.8%
Gay or lesbian	3.5%
Other	0.5%

Figure 9. Workforce gender profile by grade, March 2025

Grade	Female	Male	Total
Administrative	66.4%	33.6%	100%
Executive Officer	75.5%	24.5%	100%
Middle Manager (HEO)	70.5%	29.5%	100%
Middle Manager (SEO)	64.7%	35.3%	100%
Senior Manager (G7)	60.8%	39.2%	100%
Senior Manager (G6)	56.5%	43.5%	100%
Senior Civil Servant	39.4%	60.6%	100%
Medical and Dental	59.8%	40.2%	100%

Table 10. Workforce age profile by grade, March 2025

Grade	Under 30	30 to 39	40 to 49	50 and over	Total
Administrative	35.5%	23.8%	14.8%	25.9%	100%
Executive Officer	35.9%	25.1%	17.1%	21.9%	100%
Middle Manager (HEO)	28.5%	30.0%	19.9%	21.6%	100%
Middle Manager (SEO)	17.7%	33.5%	27.1%	21.7%	100%
Senior Manager (G7)	4.2%	28.8%	32.4%	34.6%	100%
Senior Manager (G6)	0.5%	19.4%	37.5%	42.6%	100%
Senior Civil Servant	0.0%	10.1%	43.4%	46.5%	100%
Medical and Dental	0.0%	14.4%	34.5%	51.1%	100%

Figure 11. Ethnicity workforce profile by grade, March 2025

Grade	White	Ethnic minority	Total
Administrative	60.0%	40.0%	100%
Executive Officer	60.6%	39.4%	100%
Middle Manager (HEO)	67.5%	32.5%	100%
Middle Manager (SEO)	73.1%	26.9%	100%
Senior Manager (G7)	80.1%	19.9%	100%
Senior Manager (G6)	85.4%	14.6%	100%
Senior Civil Servant	91.8%	8.2%	100%
Medical and Dental	60.5%	39.5%	100%