Corporate report

Equality in UK Health Security Agency 2026: how UKHSA met the Public Sector Equality Duty in 2025 to 2026

Updated 8 October 2026

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. UKHSA’s strategy published in 2026 reflects this and sets out how our health equity approach improves the equality of opportunity for those with protected characteristics, and other groups, to benefit from the outcomes of our health protection services. Our ambition is to establish health equity as a cornerstone of our partnerships and all our work with local communities. We will strengthen our ability to advise the public and partners, particularly in underserved communities, with improved guidance, data and tools. We will provide actionable, timely insight on health protection risks and inequalities faced by communities, ensuring that insight directly informs government, NHS and local decision making.

Building a diverse workforce and a culture of openness and inclusivity is also a key priority for UKHSA, recognising that diverse perspectives drive innovation to best meet the needs of our 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 those who exercise public functions. In practice, this means that equality considerations must be taken into account when developing policy, delivering services and managing public sector employment.

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

• eliminate 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 part of PSED)
• pregnancy and maternity
• race
• religion or belief
• sex
• sexual orientation

PSED in England is supported by the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017 which require certain public bodies (such as UKHSA) to:

• publish information to demonstrate their compliance with PSED
• prepare and publish one or more 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 our staff and to the wider public. These objectives aim to ensure that equality considerations are built into organisational processes, practices and ways of working.

UKHSA’s 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. The CORE20 includes the most deprived 20% of the national population as identified by the Index of Multiple Deprivation. The cohorts within the PLUS element are specific to the hazard in question and on local factors, and include those with protected characteristics, inclusion health groups and individuals with clinical vulnerabilities. This report focuses on the subset of the population affected by health inequalities, where these relate to protected characteristics.

UKHSA’s PSED equality objectives 2023 to 2026

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, including PSED.

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 public health 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 2025 to 2026

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. It will enable us and our partners to target and tailor interventions and monitor inequalities including PSED over time.

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

Our academic partnership through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Health Protection Research Units (HPRUs) continues to work to address key research priorities on inequalities and to integrate research inclusion throughout all workstreams. Areas of focus have included strengthening research inclusion for people from minority ethnic backgrounds, the LGBTQ+ community and for children and young people, among others.

The Health Equity in Health Protection Initiative (HEHPI) launched in 2025–26 includes an external gov.uk platform to improve transparency and accessibility of information on health inequalities in health protection and facilitate shared learning and collaboration.

UKHSA produces evidence reviews to build the evidence base across health threats. The introduction of guidance to consider CORE20PLUS populations as part of search strategies has ensured relevant evidence is gathered across our evidence reviews, and that evidence gaps are highlighted. Published evidence reviews are available.

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

UKHSA undertook a review of externally published surveillance reports to consider to what extent these data products report by protected characteristics like ethnicity and age, alongside deprivation and geography. To support improvements in how our surveillance reports show differences in health protection outcomes between those with different protected characteristics, UKHSA has produced internal best practice guidance to support the analysis and reporting of equity metrics and characteristics in our routine reporting and surveillance, including guidance on how to analyse and report on data by social deprivation and ethnicity in a consistent manner.

A linked software package has also been created which provides standardised functions that follow the best practice guidance that allow analysts in UKHSA to efficiently incorporate equity metrics into routine surveillance outputs. There have been encouraging levels of adoption of the package for uses within UKHSA.

We are reviewing surveillance outputs, including UKHSA Official Statistics, to further apply the best practice and to identify how we can further strengthen our disaggregation to support visibility of protected characteristics such as age, sex and ethnicity, alongside other markers of inequality such as region, deprivation, and geography across our data. We will continue to track this over the next 3 years.

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

Evaluation tools have been developed to ensure health equity considerations including PSED are integrated into evaluation methods for public health interventions. Our Evaluation Framework has health equity embedded as a cross-cutting theme throughout all evaluation stages and a specific tool has been developed to enable evaluation of health equity in our regional teams. The framework’s principles have been cited in our internal regional Guidance Standards and the Acute Response Service Specification, supporting a consistent approach to assessing health inequalities and accessibility across services and programmes.

Health equity considerations have also been embedded into UKHSA’s evaluation functions, including processes for project initiation, prioritisation, protocol development, and quality assurance processes. An audit of evaluation projects found that of 43 projects, over half explicitly considered health equity, including impacts relating to protected characteristics and other characteristics, such as ethnicity, age, learning disabilities, long-term health conditions as well as deprivation and inclusion health groups.

Evidence and data from evaluations are used to inform quality improvement plans and future decision making, ensuring strengthened consideration of the impacts on protected characteristics and health equity.

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 especially during public health incidents 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

UKHSA works alongside partners to develop and pilot delivery models for specific populations and places at risk.

UKHSA has strengthened extreme weather guidance (for cold weather and hot weather) to support people receiving adult social care in their own homes, including routes of escalation where a person cannot safely manage heat in their own home. This particularly addresses the needs of people with the protected characteristics of learning disabilities, older adults, and people with disabilities. For the same populations, UKHSA has developed operational guidance to support the continuation of visiting in care homes at times of outbreak of infectious disease.

UKHSA is participating in NHS England’s multiagency forum to monitor delivery of the recommendations from the Chief Medical Officer’s (CMO) prisons report. This includes considering the needs of young people, older people, maternity, pregnancy, mental health and neurodiversity entering prison as well as monitoring the implementation of specific recommendations such as opt out sexually transmitted infection (STI) testing for people entering prisons.

UKHSA is also strengthening delivery of services that will benefit across population groups including those with protected characteristics. To improve access and uptake of public health messaging, UKHSA is working with community organisations and people with lived experience of health inequalities to develop tools, standards and templates to strengthen the accessibility of health protection resources. In 2025 to 2026, UKHSA engaged with 2 charities who work with people with learning disabilities, Learning Disability England and Lewisham Speaking Up, to develop guidance and training for UKHSA staff on how to create easy read formats of public health messaging; and with people with lived experience of a range of inequalities to develop plain English accessible information on key infectious diseases.

UKHSA has also worked with academic partners and local public health teams to pull together evidence and best practice for local health protection teams into a communications toolkit. This sets out how to tailor public health messages for diverse communities including people from a minority ethnic background before, during and after communicable disease outbreaks, and is included as part of the communicable disease outbreak management guidance.

We also worked with specific communities to co-create communications for key priority areas, for example, vaccination communications with Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities.

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

UKHSA used the cross-government Exercise Pegasus to exercise how to incorporate activity on health equity (for example, mitigating impacts to those with protected characteristics and other groups, following our PSED and other legal obligations to reduce health inequalities) into our response. The cross-government evaluation of Exercise Pegasus will be published during 2026, which will include UKHSA’s formal lessons and recommendations. We are taking forward lessons learned during Exercise Pegasus and are feeding these into our implementation of the DHSC Pandemic Preparedness Strategy, and wider preparedness and response work.

UKHSA conducted a process evaluation of the health equity in incident response toolkit in 2025 to 2026. The review examined incident records from January to June 2024 and January–June 2025 to assess alignment with best practice. An audit found improvements across almost all domains in 2025 compared with 2024. Notably, incidents with a documented health equity objective increased from 25% to 70%. Surveys also showed strong awareness of the toolkit among Incident Directors and improved understanding of how to incorporate health equity into incident response. Health equity and PSED have now been incorporated into Incident Director training, with the first cohort trained at the start of 2026.

PSED objective: apply evidence on health inequalities to each workstream of the Future of the Health Protection System Co-Design Group

We have embedded the achievements and guidance published in previous years within the ways of working of the group. The FHPS is grounded in the principals of co-design, underpinned by a clear commitment to health equity in health protection outcomes.

The FHPS was established in 2022 to bring together health protection partners to collectively enhance the resilience, effectiveness and scalability of the national and local system. The Group is co-chaired by UKHSA and the Association of Directors of Public Health.

The Group also includes representatives from the Association of Chief Environmental Health Officers, the Local Government Association and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives.

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, including PSED 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, Communities and Local Government, His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) and the Department of Education to deliver care and improve services for specific populations.

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

In March 2026, we published a comprehensive Health Equity Audit for the national immunisation programme built around the CORE20PLUS framework and Public Sector Equality Duty, documenting significant and sometimes widening inequalities in uptake of different vaccinations between communities. Protected characteristics are covered in section 4.1 of the Audit. The audit identified key barriers and facilitators to vaccination and how these vary between communities.

The audit provides a baseline for measuring progress across the immunisation system in improving equitable immunisation.

Findings from the Audit have been publicised widely to help promote action on immunisation equity, including at the National Immunisation Network Conference in 2026. UKHSA lead the Immunisations Programmes Inequalities Group, which includes key stakeholders working to address inequalities and PSED, in vaccine uptake, to oversee and deliver the Immunisation Equity Strategy. This includes identifying and developing products to support implementation, such as  UKHSA’s new toolkit to support local actors in understanding and acting on immunisation inequities.

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

The UKHSA Health Equity Board provides oversight to the agency regarding our legal obligations around PSED and work to reduce health inequalities. This includes overseeing progress towards the 2023 to 2026 PSED objectives and delivery of the Health Equity for Health Security Strategy, which seeks to improve health outcomes for people who experience health inequalities, including those with different protected characteristics.

The UKHSA Executive Committee and Advisory Board provide further high level oversight of UKHSA’s ambition and delivery of UKHSA’s strategic direction on health equity and PSED.

UKHSA published its PSED report in October 2025 outlining progress over 2024 to 2025.

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

UKHSA has strengthened its work to engage with communities to reduce health inequalities. By bringing together people who have experience of living with a range of inequalities (known as ‘lived experience’) and Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) expertise, we aim to strengthen the effectiveness of our public health interventions. This has included specific engagement work with people from minoritised ethnic groups, people with learning disabilities, and people experiencing inequalities across the life course. In 2025 to 2026, over 50 individuals and 30 VCSE organisations have contributed to national priorities, including the Tuberculosis (TB) National Action Plan for England.

UKHSA published its Community Engagement Approach for Health Protection, setting out a co-created approach to what we mean by engagement, and the standards we will use to ensure our engagement is equitable, including with regard to protected characteristics. This is used across engagement projects in UKHSA and has also been shared across the system.

To support UKHSA to engage with the VCSE sector and people with lived experience, together with DHSC and NHS England, we delivered the final year of the VCSE Health and Wellbeing Alliance programme, enabling the sector to share expertise with the health system. The Alliance included VCSE members representing maternity, LGBTQ+, faith and disability, among others. Scoping for a future programme is underway. In addition, UKHSA appointed a peer-led research organisation to lead national engagement through to 2029, supported by a renewed lived experience panel that will support the organisation over the next 3 years.

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

In 2025 to 2026, over 700 colleagues accessed live training on PSED, including via tailored sessions for different audiences with different needs, reflecting another year-on-year increase. Over 1,600 colleagues also undertook online Civil Service training on the legislation for diversity and inclusion and the Equality Act 2010 in 2025 to 2026, which was a slight decrease on 2024 to 2025.

We are developing an eLearning product for colleagues on PSED for launch in 2026 to 2027.

Our internal webpages supporting how to consider inequalities, including PSED, in our work generate around 500 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 PSED. Equality impact assessments (EIAs) to help demonstrate compliance with PSED are undertaken including when responding to a public health incident and when producing guidance.

All staff can learn from how others have considered PSED by consulting a repository of EIAs and consult internally published advice and guidance on having due regard to 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. Health equity and PSED considerations are embedded across key processes and procedures to ensure as an organisation that equalities impacts are consistently considered.

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

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

In 2025 to 2026, over 700 colleagues accessed live training on PSED, including via tailored sessions for different audiences with different needs, reflecting another year-on-year increase. Over 1,600 colleagues also undertook online Civil Service training on the legislation for diversity and inclusion and the Equality Act 2010, in 2025 to 2026, which was a slight decrease on 2024 to 2025.

We are developing an eLearning product for colleagues on PSED for launch in 2026 to 2027.

Our internal webpages supporting how to consider inequalities, including PSED, in our work generate around 500 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 PSED. Equality impact assessments (EIAs) to help demonstrate compliance with PSED are undertaken including when responding to a public health incident and when producing guidance.

All staff can learn from how others have considered PSED by consulting a repository of EIAs and consult internally published advice and guidance on having due regard to 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. health equity and PSED considerations are embedded across key processes and procedures to ensure as an organisation that equalities impacts are consistently considered.

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)

PSED objective: we will continue to invest in a talented workforce that represents the diversity of the working population. We will nurture and sustain an inclusive and respectful culture and working environment across UKHSA that values and respects diversity and inclusion

To do this we will:

• promote inclusive behaviours, through developing managers’ understanding of the link between effective diversity and inclusion and the impact on physical and mental health
• continue to drive up declaration rates, collate, and monitor diversity information on our staff and use our diversity dashboard to provide accurate and meaningful data to senior leaders in all directorates as evidence in tackling workforce inequality
• we will attract, recruit, and develop a workforce with a blend of strengths and experience, and make UKHSA a place where everyone is proud to work, using our data and insight to put in place new opportunities and interventions

We will know we have achieved this when:

• UKHSA is meeting key performance indicators (KPIs) showing progress on diversity, staff inclusion, and the addressing of staff health and wellbeing
• improved diversity declaration rates are demonstrably informing decision-making around staff matters we have implemented and evaluated improvements based on new interventions around staff talent and recruitment

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 are supported by 3 pillars. We believe these 3 priorities will support us in continuing to build an inclusive culture.

1. People

To be an inclusive organisation where everyone can thrive. Inclusion is shaped by all of us working together to create a great place to work.

2. Potential

To be an impactful organisation where everyone can reach their potential. Embracing all our talents and celebrating our success makes us feel valued and supported to give of our best.

3. Performance

To be an insightful organisation, with a high performing culture, that performs at its best to deliver better outcomes.

Governance

Everyone in UKHSA has responsibility for creating a diverse and inclusive culture, however ultimate responsibility sits with our CEO. 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 Strategic priorities and are instrumental in supporting D&I activities.

The Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) team meet monthly with network chairs and champions and report regularly to the People and Culture Committee and/or Executive Committee.

The below sets out how we have met the specific PSED requirement to have regard to the need to:

1. Eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010.
2. Advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it.
3. Foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it.

1. Eliminating discrimination

UKHSA is committed to eliminating discrimination by embedding inclusive policies, practices and support mechanisms that identify and address barriers experienced by people with protected characteristics and help create an equitable working environment for all colleagues.

Benchmarks

UKHSA is a Disability Confident Level 3 Leader and, on 9 April 2025, achieved Level 3 Carer Confident Ambassador Accreditation, the highest Carers Confident level. Together, these accreditations demonstrate our commitment to removing workplace barriers and ensuring we have an inclusive workplace that supports colleagues with disabilities and caring responsibilities to thrive and contribute fully.

Gender pay gap

Our UKHSA gender pay gap report for 2024/2025 was published on 16 December 2025, as part of the wider Department of Health and Social Care health family report. UKHSA’s mean pay gap fell to 9.4%, representing a 0.5 percentage point reduction from 2024. The median pay gap fell to 6.5%, a 1.4 percentage point drop from the previous year.

Both measures remain below the UK national average of 12.8%, according to Office for National Statistics data from 2025.

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, network membership increased by 18% by March 2026. Our networks actively shape culture, facilitating collective learning, development opportunities and events that support members across the organisation.

Wellbeing

Maintaining workforce health and wellbeing is critical to delivering UKHSA’s priorities, particularly during national incidents. UKHSA provides a comprehensive health and wellbeing offer spanning prevention, early intervention, and specialist support, shaped by staff feedback, surveys and staff networks.

This includes the Health and Wellbeing Policy, Employee Assistance Programme, in-house Occupational Health Service, UKHSA Wellbeing Charter, psychological safety resources, wellbeing campaigns, learning and guidance, and tools to support managers in creating healthy workplaces.

Mental Health First Aiders, Wellbeing Champions and staff networks further strengthen local support, while initiatives such as the Menopause and Endometriosis Cafés, Men’s Health Forum, Cancer Network and Grief and Bereavement Cafés provide opportunities for peer support, inclusion and shared learning.

2. Advancing equality of opportunity

UKHSA advances equality of opportunity by removing barriers to development and progression, meeting the differing needs of colleagues with protected characteristics, and supporting participation in learning, leadership and career development opportunities across the organisation

Leadership, Learning, Development and Talent

UKHSA is committed to providing fair and equitable access to learning, development and progression opportunities. Our approach focuses on ensuring colleagues have the skills, support and opportunities they need to succeed, regardless of background, career stage or working pattern.

We continue to embed inclusive principles across our learning, talent and leadership offers, helping to remove barriers to participation and support a culture where all colleagues can develop and thrive.

A range of development opportunities are available to all staff, including apprenticeships, coaching and mentoring, job shadowing, induction programmes and leadership development. These initiatives support colleagues to build skills, develop their careers and access learning in ways that meet different needs.

Key initiatives include:

Apprenticeships

Opportunities from entry to master’s level support skills development, career progression and social mobility. Over the past 12 months, 57 apprenticeship starts were supported.

Impactful Manager Programme

UKHSA’s internal line management programme, aligned to the Civil Service Line Manager standards, supports managers to lead fairly, confidently and inclusively, helping to promote consistency and equity in people management.

Leadership Development

Leadership and management development continues to promote psychologically safe, high-performing teams and inclusive leadership behaviours.

Learning and Development

All staff complete mandatory recurring Civil Service Expectations training, including Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Awareness. This helps colleagues understand equality legislation, develop inclusive behaviours, and foster a fair and inclusive workplace. In addition, our Induction Welcome Event uses practical activities and discussion to help colleagues apply these principles in their day-to-day work.

Talent Development

Our inclusive talent approach supports colleagues to take ownership of their development, have effective career conversations and access progression opportunities.

Accelerate Programme

Our positive action talent development programme supports colleagues from ethnic minority backgrounds and disabled colleagues to access development opportunities and strengthen diverse talent pipelines. Originally launched as a pilot for G6/G7 colleagues, the programme has since expanded to include HEO/SEO and AO/EO grades, supporting 34 participants across 3 cohorts between 2023/24 and 2025/26.

Cross-Government Talent Schemes

Colleagues also have access to programmes such as Fast Stream, Future Leaders, Senior Leaders and Beyond Boundaries.

3. Fostering good relations

UKHSA fosters good relations by creating opportunities for colleagues from different backgrounds and with different lived experiences to learn from one another, challenge prejudice, and build understanding, respect and inclusion across the organisation.

Communication

We continue to make D&I visible across UKHSA, through a comprehensive communications and engagement plan, with staff network activity aligned to key awareness dates to raise awareness, celebrate success and engage with our staff on D&I. These activities help promote understanding of different protected characteristics, increase awareness of colleagues’ experiences and contributions, and supports efforts to challenge stereotypes and prejudice. In partnership with our Content and Internal Communications teams, we improved staff network pages to enhance accessibility and navigation. Between 1 March 2025 and 1 April 2026, we published 79 blogs and news stories and held 36 events.

Digital accessibility community

The professional digital accessibility community launched in October 2025. This community aims to help remove barriers for disabled people ensuring they can take an active part in working life. The community of practice brings together colleagues committed to making UKHSA intranet content, products, and services accessible to all. It is a place to share best practice, ask questions and do training sessions on different aspects of accessibility. The community promotes greater understanding of disability and accessibility needs across the organisation, helping to build awareness and reduce barriers experienced by colleagues with a disability.

Focus Inclusion

We continue to deliver our bitesize Focus Inclusion sessions to raise awareness of the Civil Service Model of Inclusion, promote consistent inclusion messaging, encourage completion of mandatory training and diversity data updates and support UKHSA in building an inclusive workplace culture that enhances organisational performance. These sessions help foster good relations by increasing understanding of inclusion, encouraging respectful behaviours and supporting colleagues to recognise and challenge bias and prejudice.

People Survey

Between 1 April 2025 and 31 March 2026, our People Survey score for inclusion and fair treatment dropped one percentage point to 78% and 81% of our workforce had completed their Civil Service Expectations mandatory training. These measures provide an indication of how colleagues experience inclusion and fair treatment within UKHSA and help inform actions to strengthen understanding, respect and positive working relationships across the organisation. The learning, leadership, line management and talent initiatives outlined above form part of our ongoing approach to responding to these findings and strengthening colleagues’ experiences of inclusion and fair treatment across UKHSA.

Annex 1. UKHSA staff characteristics

Statistics are taken from the UKHSA Human Resources and Payroll system (also called Money and People System (MaPS). The following 2 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

Percentage	March 2024	June 2024	September 2024	December 2024	March 2025	March 2026
Ethnicity	83%	85%	87%	87%	88%	88%
Disability	77%	79%	80%	80%	81%	83%
Religion and belief	73%	76%	77%	78%	79%	81%
Sexual orientation	71%	74%	76%	76%	78%	79%

Figure 2. Proportion UKHSA Employees who have declared each of the protected characteristics (excluding Prefer Not to Say), March 2026

Percentage	March 2024	March 2025	March 2026
Ethnicity	78%	83%	87%
Disability	53%	60%	63%
Religion and belief	65%	71%	72%
Sexual orientation	63%	68%	68%

Figure 3. Gender profile of UKHSA staff, March 2026

Gender	Percentage of UKHSA staff
Female	65.7%
Male	34.3%

Figure 4. Age profile of UKHSA staff, March 2026

Age	Percentage
16 to 19
20 to 29	15.8%
30 to 39	28.3%
40 to 49	27.1%
50 to 59	20.1%
60 to 64	5.9%
65 and over	2.8%

Figure 5. Distribution of UKHSA staff by ethnic group, March 2026

Ethnic group	Percentage
White	70.8%
Asian	15.1%
Black	9.3%
Chinese	0.7%
Mixed	3.0%
Other ethnic group	1.1%

Figure 6. Disability status profile of UKHSA staff, March 2026

Category	Percentage
Not disabled	89.1%
Disabled	10.9%

Figure 7. Religion and belief profile reported by UKHSA staff, March 2026

Religion	Percentage
Atheist	27.3%
Buddhist	1%
Christian	41.1%
Hindu	4.8%
Humanist	0.2%
Muslim	7.5%
Jain	0.5%
Jew	0.7%
Sikh	0.9%
Other	8.4%
No faith	7.5%

Figure 8. Sexual orientation reported by UKHSA staff, March 2026

Sexual orientation	Percentage
Heterosexual	92.0%
Gay or lesbian	3.4%
Bisexual	4.0%
Other	0.5%

Figure 9. Workforce gender profile by grade, March 2026

Grade	Female (%)	Male (%)	Total
Administrative	66	34	100%
Executive Officer	76	24	100%
Middle Manager (HEO)	70	30	100%
Middle Manager (SEO)	66	34	100%
Senior Manager (G7)	62	38	100%
Senior Manager (G6)	59	41	100%
Senior Civil Servant	45	55	100%
Medical and Dental	62	38	100%

Figure 10. Workforce age profile by grade, March 2026

Grade	Under 30 (%)	30 to 39 (%)	40 to 49 (%)	50 and over (%)	Total
Administrative	35	24	17	25	100%
Executive Officer	31	29	17	23	100%
Middle Manager (HEO)	25	31	21	23	100%
Middle Manager (SEO)	16	36	27	22	100%
Senior Manager (G7)	4	28	34	34	100%
Senior Manager (G6)	1	18	38	44	100%
Senior Civil Servant	0	11	46	43	100%
Medical and Dental	0	14	35	51	100%

Figure 11. Ethnicity workforce profile by grade, March 2026

Grade	White (%)	Ethnic minority (%)	Total
Administrative	56	44	100%
Executive Officer	57	43	100%
Middle Manager (HEO)	66	34	100%
Middle Manager (SEO)	73	27	100%
Senior Manager (G7)	79	21	100%
Senior Manager (G6)	85	15	100%
Senior Civil Servant	89	11	100%
Medical and Dental	59	41	100%