Major British charities are facing heavy criticism after official figures revealed white employees earn significantly lower median salaries than their ethnic minority colleagues.
Oxfam paid its white employees 33 percent less on average last year than staff who identified as black or a person of colour, according to the organisation’s latest annual report.
Charity pay gaps widen
The gap marks a dramatic increase from 2024, when the international charity recorded a pay difference of 10.4 percent.
Other major non-profit institutions have published similar salary disparities favouring ethnic minority staff.
Cancer Research UK reported an average ethnicity pay gap of 7.6 percent against white staff in 2025.
The British Red Cross registered an 11.4 percent difference in pay benefiting minority personnel.
Equality law under fire
Negative ethnicity pay gaps across the sector mean white employees received median earnings up to a third lower than black colleagues, people of colour, and other ethnic minorities.
Pay gap figures can be complex and influenced by the proportion of specific groups working in higher or lower-paying roles.
However, the figures have fuelled growing concern over positive action provisions set out in the Equality Act 2010.
Critics claim the legislation is being exploited to facilitate positive discrimination through the recruitment or promotion of under-represented groups over equally qualified candidates.
The positive action section of the Equality Act has become a get-out-of-jail-free card for any employer who wants to discriminate against white people.
Lord Young of Acton, Founder of the Free Speech Union
Merit must determine salary
Lord Young added that he expects such outcomes to become far more widespread once reporting rules become mandatory.
Political figures have demanded a return to fair treatment based on individual capability rather than ethnicity.
James Wild, the Shadow Culture Minister, stated that individuals should be rewarded for their talent and hard work regardless of background.
Fairness means ensuring everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed, not preferential treatment or discrimination that puts others at an unfair disadvantage,
The Shadow Culture Minister reinforced that earnings must reflect personal ability.
Pay should be based on merit, skills and performance, rather than factors beyond anyone’s control.
Working class facing disadvantage
Reform UK Equalities Spokesman Suella Braverman warned that existing legislation is actively harming British workers.
These are the results of the Equality Act laid bare. Rampant positive action schemes are actively discriminating against white, working-class Brits in favour of ethnic minorities, leading to certain groups gaining an upper hand when it comes to the jobs market. This is simply unacceptable. We cannot live in a society that values thoughts and feelings over merit.