Next secured a significant but partial victory at the Employment Appeal Tribunal on Monday, overturning the original ruling on basic hourly pay for its warehouse workers while leaving other equal pay findings against it intact.

The Employment Appeal Tribunal ruled that Next was justified in paying its warehouse operatives more than its predominantly female store staff for basic hourly rates, accepting the retailer's argument that recruitment and retention pressures in the warehouse labour market provided sufficient legal justification for the disparity. The original 2024 Employment Tribunal decision in Leeds had found that more than 3,500 current and former store workers, overwhelmingly women, were entitled to the same pay rates as warehouse staff across a range of terms.

Next said the appeal tribunal had now ruled in its favour on the majority of contested terms, including warehouse bonus pay, which it had won at the original tribunal stage. The retailer said it intends to seek permission to appeal on a small number of remaining terms, including paid rest breaks.

The company said in a regulatory announcement that losing the basic pay element of the appeal would have represented a threat to the ongoing viability of many of its stores, and would have put retailers operating their own warehousing at a disadvantage relative to those that contract out warehouse operations.

Both the original tribunal and the appeal tribunal found no direct sex discrimination in Next's pay-setting, with the original tribunal finding that "gender did not enter into the equation" when the retailer determined its rates, according to Next's announcement.

Leigh Day, the law firm representing the claimants, said the ruling was mixed. Elizabeth George, a partner at Leigh Day, said: "The Appeal Tribunal's conclusion on basic pay is disappointing. Next pays market rates in both its stores and its warehouses in order to recruit and retain staff. The market rate is higher in the predominantly male warehouse labour market, even though the work carried out in stores has already been found to be equal work."

George added that if an employer need only demonstrate it pays market rates to justify a pay disparity, "the very market conditions that give rise to the discrimination then become the legal justification." Leigh Day said the claimant group, which has grown to more than 6,000 since the 2024 ruling, intends to appeal the basic pay decision.

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