Next has won a significant appeal over its decision to pay warehouse operatives a higher basic hourly rate than shop-floor staff, most of whom are women.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal accepted that the retailer’s basic-pay difference was justified by the particular recruitment and retention pressures affecting its warehouses.
The decision overturns a central part of a 2024 employment tribunal ruling that favoured thousands of current and former Next shop workers.
However, it does not bring the wider equal-pay case to an end.
Findings against Next concerning night-time premiums, overtime payments and paid rest breaks remain in place. Lawyers representing the workers have also indicated that they intend to challenge the latest basic-pay ruling.
Why Next won its appeal
The dispute centres on store employees, who are predominantly women, comparing their pay with the earnings of mainly male warehouse operatives.
An employment tribunal previously found that the two groups performed work of equal value. That finding did not automatically mean every difference in pay was unlawful, because an employer can defend a disparity if it was caused by a material factor unrelated to sex and can be objectively justified where required.
Next argued that it had to offer higher basic wages in its warehouses because it faced different labour-market conditions when recruiting and retaining warehouse staff.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal accepted that argument in relation to basic pay. The judgment was delivered by Mr Justice Bourne on 7 September 2026 and is published by HM Courts and Tribunals Service.
The ruling does not establish that employers can always rely on market rates to justify paying one workforce more than another. The tribunal considered the evidence about Next’s warehouses and stores and decided that the company had demonstrated a legitimate recruitment and retention need in this particular case.
Both the original tribunal and the appeal tribunal found no evidence that Next had deliberately set out to discriminate against women.
What the original ruling said
The case was brought by current and former Next employees who argued that store workers were paid less than warehouse colleagues despite carrying out work of equal value.
The 2024 ruling covered 3,540 claimants and followed a legal battle lasting several years. The store workforce involved in the case was overwhelmingly female, while the warehouse workforce was predominantly male.
The tribunal accepted the equal-value comparison and initially rejected Next’s justification for the basic-pay gap. The decision was expected to entitle workers to more than £30 million in back pay, according to Sky News.
Next appealed, arguing that the original tribunal had not properly applied the legal test when considering the commercial pressures affecting warehouse wages.
The latest judgment overturns that part of the decision, substantially reducing the company’s potential liability.
Shop workers still won important parts of the case
Next’s victory is only partial.
The appeal tribunal upheld findings favouring the shop workers in relation to enhanced payments for night work, overtime premiums and paid rest breaks.
Those differences could not be justified in the same way as the basic hourly warehouse rate, meaning affected employees may still be entitled to compensation.
Some parts of the litigation also remain unresolved, while Next has said it intends to appeal findings that continue to favour the workers.
Leigh Day, the law firm representing the claimants, says it now acts for more than 6,400 current and former Next employees in the wider proceedings.
Elizabeth George, a partner at the firm, described the basic-pay outcome as “disappointing” and confirmed that the workers intend to appeal.
Their argument is that allowing employers to rely on labour-market rates can preserve existing pay inequalities when lower-paid occupations are dominated by women and better-paid roles are dominated by men.
Next hails ‘landmark victory’
Next described the judgment as a “landmark victory” and said it confirmed that businesses can respond to genuine differences in the labour market when setting pay.
The company had previously warned that being required to equalise basic wages across its shops and warehouses could threaten the commercial viability of some stores.
Its position is that it paid the market rate required to recruit employees in both parts of the business, rather than deciding wages according to the sex of the people doing the work.
The retailer now has legal support for that argument over basic pay, although it continues to face liability over other employment terms.
Why other retailers will be watching
The judgment is likely to be examined closely by other major retailers facing similar equal-pay claims.
Workers at Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s have brought cases comparing predominantly female store roles with mainly male warehouse or distribution jobs. The potential value of those claims across the retail industry runs into billions of pounds.
Next’s victory may strengthen arguments that warehouse wage premiums can be objectively justified where employers provide convincing evidence of recruitment difficulties and market pressure.
It does not automatically determine the outcome of the supermarket cases. Each employer will need to prove why its own pay differences existed and whether the measures taken were proportionate.
The Next litigation is also continuing. The workers can seek permission to appeal the basic-pay judgment, while the company can challenge the findings concerning premiums and rest breaks.
For now, Next has removed the largest part of its potential equal-pay liability, but thousands of shop workers remain claimants in a case that is not yet finished.
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