Collecting and analysing equality data in the uniformed services

This guidance is designed to help armed forces, fire and rescue services and police forces in England, Scotland and Wales collect and analyse good quality equality data. These organisations are referred to as ‘uniformed services’ in this guide.  

The collection and publication of equality information is a legal obligation under the Equality Act 2010.

This guidance is designed to help you:  

• improve staff engagement and your organisation’s reputation
• improve staff recruitment and retention
• improve your collection, use and analysis of workforce protected characteristic data in line with the Equality Act 2010
• prevent, identify and reduce workplace discrimination, harassment and victimisation
• improve equality of opportunity in the workforce and support compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) general and specific duties
• create effective strategies and policies

This guide is part of our wider programme of work to prevent race and sex-based discrimination, harassment and victimisation in the workplaces of uniformed services. For definitions of these terms, read our guidance about direct and indirect discrimination and harassment and victimisation. 

We use the terminology of discrimination, harassment and victimisation because these are the terms used in the Equality Act. However, it is important to note that within your workplace the term ‘bullying’ might be more frequently used or may arise when collecting and analysing workforce data. Bullying behaviour can be harassment if it relates to a ‘protected characteristic’ under the Equality Act. Read ACAS’ guidance about bullying at work for further information and examples of bullying.

We know that uniformed services have differing resources available to them, competing challenges and are not all starting from the same point. This guide is designed to be a practical resource to help your organisation work towards better data collection and analysis.

Who this guidance is for

This guide supports those working in the uniformed services to collect the most useful data about their workforce. By uniformed services, we mean armed forces, fire and rescue services and police forces.

It will be especially useful for people working in these job roles:

• equality, diversity and inclusion  
• human resources
• finance  
• professional standards

Fill in the survey on our data guidance

We are seeking feedback from fire and rescue services, police services and the armed forces about how you use this guidance.

Your responses will help us understand how our guidance supports equality and diversity practices across the uniformed services. They will also inform any advice or guidance we offer in the future on collecting equality data.

The survey will be open from 18 September 2025, 2:55pm. It will close on 18 October 2026, 11:59pm.

If you cannot use the online survey, or need a reasonable adjustment, read about how to contact us.