Gender pay transparency: EU-wide guidelines on gender-neutral job evaluation and classification

At a glance

• On 14 April 2026, the European Commission, together with the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), presented the updated EU-wide guidelines on gender-neutral job evaluation and classification.
• The updated guidelines support implementation of the EU Gender Pay Transparency Directive (GPTD) but are not a legal act and do not constitute an interpretation of EU or national law.
• Designed as a practical step-by-step toolkit, they aim to help organisations of all sizes in assessing and classifying jobs to help employers comply with the GPTD.
• EIGE also provides supplementary materials, including a factor and subfactor plan and downloadable editable templates for each step of the process.

On 14 April 2026, the European Commission, together with the EIGE, presented the updated EU-wide guidelines on gender-neutral job evaluation and classification. It is an update of the previously existing European Commission's 2013 guidelines.

The updated guidelines support the implementation of the GPTD; they are not a legal act and do not constitute an interpretation of EU or national law.

Designed as a practical step-by-step toolkit, the guidelines aim to help organisations of all sizes in assessing and classifying jobs to help employers comply with the GPTD.

Besides this toolkit, the EIGE also provides the following supporting materials:

• Factor and subfactor plan: The plan breaks down the different criteria used to evaluate a job, including skills, responsibility, effort and working conditions, into clear, objective subfactors to support gender-neutral job evaluation and classification.
• Templates: There are templates available for download in an editable format, corresponding to the steps in the toolkit eg a sample project outline for the employer’s gender-neutral job evaluation and classification process, or an excel sheet for classifying jobs and checking for gender pay gaps in the basic pay structure.

The toolkit is primarily intended to be used by employers, but it is also a valuable resource for practitioners.