The government has launched new requirements for large employers to set out how they support staff through the menopause. Here’s what the new rules actually say.
Announced this week ahead of International Women’s Day, the government has launched action plans requiring employers with 250 or more staff to publish the steps they are taking to support employees through the menopause and reduce their gender pay gap. The plans form part of the Employment Rights Act 2025, which received Royal Assent in December 2025. They will be voluntary from 6 April 2026, and mandatory in 2027.
The announcement was made by Bridget Phillipson, Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities, who said employers had for too long overlooked “common sense adjustments” for women’s health needs at work. The government has simultaneously published new employer guidance on the practical adjustments organisations should be making, including flexible working, temperature controls, uniform adjustments, and rest areas. The guidance also covers employees with related conditions including endometriosis, PCOS, and fibroids.
The scale of what has gone unaddressed is significant. The Fawcett Society estimates that one in ten women aged 40 to 55 who worked through the menopause have left a job because of their symptoms, with a further 13% having considered it. Menopause is estimated to cost the economy 14 million working days every year. There are over seven million women aged 40 to 60 in the UK workforce, most of whom will experience symptoms at some point.
It is not just the women who leave who are affected. Research by the CIPD found that more than two in five women have seen menopause treated as a joke in the workplace, three in five say they lost motivation due to their symptoms, and half say they lost confidence. Only around a quarter of organisations currently have a menopause policy or any support measures in place at all.
What will employers actually have to do?
Under the new requirements, large employers will need to produce and publish a Menopause Action Plan setting out how they will actively support employees through the menopause. On the gender pay gap, employers will be required to go beyond publishing data and commit to a formal plan of action to address it. Both requirements move the bar from reporting to accountability, at least in theory.
It is worth noting that menopause is not a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010, though symptoms can fall under existing protections relating to sex, age, and disability. The new action plans do not change that. What they do, for the first time, is require employers to put something concrete on paper.
A recent survey found that 45% of women were unaware of any workplace adjustments their employer offered. That figure alone makes the case for why a legal requirement, however slowly it arrives, matters.
What the experts are saying
Fawcett Society chief executive Penny East welcomed the announcement but was measured. The plans should mark a shift “from transparency to action,” she said, and called for the final mandatory framework to include stronger accountability measures and clearer enforcement. Real progress, she warned, would only come when employers are required to take decisive action rather than simply publish documents.
Mariella Frostrup, government Menopause Employment Ambassador, said no woman should have to leave a job she loves because of a natural stage of life.
Why this matters for all of us
Menopause typically occurs between the ages of 45 and 55, but perimenopause can begin years earlier. Symptoms range from hot flushes and insomnia to brain fog, anxiety, and joint pain, and can persist for years. Because those symptoms tend to peak during a woman’s forties and fifties, they arrive precisely at the point when many women are most experienced and most senior in their careers.
Every woman who menstruates will reach menopause. That is not a niche health issue or a concern for older workers. It is a near-universal stage of life that the workplace has simply chosen, for a very long time, not to accommodate. Whether these action plans change that in practice, or become another layer of paperwork that sits unread in a policy folder, is the question worth watching.
The voluntary phase begins in April. The New Feminist will be keeping track.
