Disability Employment Statistics: UK and Europe

United Kingdom

Employment Rate

• Disability employment gap: 29.7 percentage points in Q2 2025 (82.5% of non-disabled vs. 52.8% of disabled working-age people in employment — DWP, The employment of disabled people 2025)
• Up to the start of the pandemic the gap was narrowing, but DWP notes that historical downward trends in the gap "have stalled in the last five years"
• The government's long-term ambition is an overall 80% employment rate (Get Britain Working White Paper)

Workforce Composition

• 10.4 million working-age people were classed as disabled in Q2 2025 — nearly one in four of the working-age population
• 5.5 million disabled people were in employment in Q2 2025
• 21.7% of economically inactive disabled people wanted a job in 2024/25 (16.3% for economically inactive non-disabled people)
• Between 2014 and 2024, disabled workers moved out of work at more than twice the rate of non-disabled workers (10.1% vs. 4.6% a year on average), and workless disabled people moved into work at 7.6% vs. 28.3% for workless non-disabled people

Pay

• 12.7% disability pay gap in 2023 (median hourly pay £13.69 for disabled vs. £15.69 for non-disabled employees — ONS)
• The gap was wider for men (15.5%) than for women (9.6%)

Sector Distribution

Disabled workers are more likely than non-disabled workers to work in Health, Retail and Education — together these sectors employ 39.8% of disabled workers vs. 34.4% of non-disabled workers.

Part-time Work and Underemployment

• 31.9% of disabled workers work part-time (21.1% of non-disabled workers)
• The underemployment rate for disabled workers was 10.0% in April to June 2025, compared with 7.7% for non-disabled workers

European Union

Employment Gap

• Eurostat: the employment gap between people with and without disabilities in the EU was 24.0 percentage points in 2024

Country Variation (disability employment gap, ages 20–64, 2022)

Source: European Disability Expertise, "European comparative data on persons with disabilities" (data 2022, published November 2024), based on Eurostat EU-SILC. Data for Germany are provisional. This indicator uses a different definition of employment from the Eurostat 2024 figure above, so the two should not be compared directly.

EU Disability Strategy 2021–2030

The European Commission's Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities covers the full range of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Its flagship initiatives include:

• A Disability Employment Package to help bring and keep persons with disabilities in quality and sustainable jobs
• The AccessibleEU resource centre and the European Disability Card
• Alongside the Strategy, the European Accessibility Act has applied since 28 June 2025

Norway (Reference Market for InkludX)

• Statistics Norway (SSB) published labour market statistics on people with disabilities from the Labour Force Survey (AKU) from 2002 to 2021, after which the topic was removed. It will be reintroduced with data collection in 2027, with results due in February 2028 — so there are currently no recent official SSB employment rates for disabled people.
• IA Agreement (Inclusive Working Life): An agreement between the authorities and the social partners, renewed on 12 February 2025 for four years, aiming to create a working life with room for everyone by preventing sick leave and drop-out from work

Business Case Data Point

Data Sources

• DWP, The employment of disabled people 2025 (Labour Force Survey, Annual Population Survey, Family Resources Survey)
• ONS, Disability pay gaps in the UK: 2014 to 2023
• Eurostat; European Disability Expertise comparative data (EU-SILC)
• Statistics Norway (SSB)
• European Commission, Union of Equality: Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2021–2030