Mrs Caroline Angelow v UK Atomic Energy Authority — 2024

Mrs Caroline Angelow brought an equal pay claim against UK Atomic Energy Authority comparing her role as Apprenticeship Coach/Assessor with Martin Tinson's role as Early Careers Coach/Assessor (Engineering). The claimant started on 29 March 2021 and was paid £28,000 per year pro rata to £22,703; the comparator's engineering role was evaluated at Level 4 and attracted a market premium payment of £3,100.

Applying section 65 of the Equality Act 2010 and the two-stage like work analysis, the Tribunal focused on the work actually done rather than only the job descriptions. It accepted that there were some generic similarities in supporting apprentices, but found important differences in practice. In particular, it found that the comparator had line management responsibility for engineering apprentices, used engineering knowledge in the day-to-day performance of his role, and had responsibility for engineering apprenticeship recruitment, whereas the claimant did not have the same level of technical input or ownership of recruitment.

On that basis the Tribunal held that the claimant and comparator were not employed on like work, so the equal pay claim failed. The judgment also recorded that a grievance had been rejected and that later job evaluations left the claimant's role at Level 3 and the comparator's at Level 4.

The Tribunal did not finally determine the material factor defence in this judgment. It said that, had it considered the point fully, its preliminary view was that the defence applied only to the market premium payment element of the comparator's pay and not to any other difference, and it indicated that a separate judgment would follow after written submissions.