How the EIGE Point Factor Method Works
A simple explainer with a worked example
The EU Pay Transparency Directive requires employers to prove that they provide equal pay for work of equal value. To enforce this, the directive grants employees new information rights, including access to pay-setting criteria and the current average pay of colleagues doing work of equal value, broken down by gender.
To meet these obligations, employers need a way to determine which jobs are of equal value. This is the purpose of job evaluation. It is a structured way to measure the value of each job - focusing entirely on the job itself, not the person doing it. Grouping similar jobs together in this way creates your job architecture.
If you are wondering which job evaluation method to use, a good place to start is with the EU-wide guidelines on gender-neutral job evaluation. The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) and European Commission published these guidelines together in March 2026 to help EU employers prepare for the Directive.
The guidelines set out three job evaluation pathways, depending on the size of your organisation. For medium-sized organisations with 50 or more workers and large organisations with 250 or more, where there are more than 15 different jobs, it recommends the point-factor method. Using it is voluntary. But if you are building a job architecture from scratch, there is little reason to start anywhere else.
How the point-factor method works
The point-factor method works like a scorecard. Every job is scored against a set of objective factors. The scores are added up, and the total decides which job group the job sits in. The more demanding the job, the higher its score.
The most important rule is that you evaluate the job, not the person who holds it. If a job holder has a master's degree but the job does not require one, the job is not scored as if it did.
While the point-factor method can sometimes be perceived as complex, it actually boils down to understanding three key concepts. Let's cover them one by one.
Concept 1: What gets scored - factors and subfactors
The first thing to understand is what gets scored. The Directive mandates that employers evaluate each job based on at least four objective factors: skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions.
The EIGE point factor method breaks the four factors break down into 14 subfactors. Skills has five subfactors, responsibility has four, effort has three and working conditions has two.
Each job gets a score for each subfactor. This is done using the subfactor’s scale. For most subfactors the scale runs from 0 to 5. A 0 means the subfactor does not apply at all to the job. A 5 means the highest level of that subfactor. Knowledge is the one exception. The scale for knowledge runs from 0 to 8.
Concept 2: Not all factors are created equal - points and weights
The next thing to understand is that some subfactor scores are weighted more heavily than others in determining the overall job score.
Each job can score a maximum of 1,200 points. Each subfactor has its own max potential share of those points, based on its weight. When you score a job on a subfactor scale, that score automatically converts into points, which add up to the job's final total.
It is worth noting that two of the fourteen subfactors - Knowledge and Responsibility for People - carry the most weight, at up to a maximum of 144 points each (or 12% of the total).
These are EIGE's default weights. An organisation can adjust these, or add a subfactor if something important is missing. EIGE's advice is that the standard plan is enough in most cases. Any change needs to be objective, gender-neutral, clearly defined and documented, and it must not double count something already scored. Reweighting is one of the easiest ways to let bias back in, so changes need care.
Concept 3: Grouping jobs by equal value - Grouping Ranges
With a score for every job, you can start to see how your jobs compare with each other. Each job is placed into a group based on its score. EIGE's default model uses 10 job groups, with each group covering a band of 120 points (splitting the 1,200-point maximum into 10 equal parts).
For example, Group 1 covers 0 to 120 points, Group 2 covers 121 to 240 points, and so on, all the way up to Group 10 at 1,081 to 1,200 points.
Jobs in the same group are treated as work of equal value, even if the daily tasks look different. A payroll specialist and a care coordinator job could be in the same group if their total demands add up to a similar score.
This is the link to the Directive. Employers have to report their gender pay gap by "category of workers". A category of workers is a group of people doing the same work or work of equal value, grouped using objective, gender-neutral criteria. The job groups that come out of a point-factor evaluation are those categories.
You may find that your organisation does not have jobs present in every job group. In particular, there may be few or no jobs at group 1 and group 10. A job only lands in group 1 if most subfactors don't apply to it at all (i.e. the job scores 0 on many subfactors). Group 10 needs a near-maximum score on almost everything, and in our experience even a CEO usually sits in group 9. In practice, most jobs fall between groups 2 and 9.
What does an evaluated job look like?
To see how this works in practice, let’s look at an Accountant role.
The evaluation is based on the job profile which describes the job requirements in five sections: Job Purpose, Skills, Responsibility, Effort, and Working Conditions. Each section provides specific evidence needed to evaluate the job across the 14 subfactors.
For this Accountant job, the purpose is to analyse accounting records, prepare financial statements, audit system compliance, and advise management on performance and risk.
The Accountant job scores 483 out of 1,200 points, placing it in Group 5 (which covers 481 to 600 points).
Because a score of 483 sits right at the bottom edge of its band, this Accountant role rests close to the Group 4 boundary. You must pay extra attention to "borderline" jobs like this. Since a small adjustment to subfactor scores could shift them into a different pay category, they are the jobs most likely to face close scrutiny.
Why this method is considered to be gender-neutral
In the past, some job evaluation methods gave more credit to the demands of jobs mostly done by men, such as physical strength, technical expertise or managing budgets. They gave less credit to the demands of jobs mostly done by women.
The EIGE factor plan was built to correct that. It explicitly credits demands that are often overlooked. These include the emotional effort of supporting people in distress, responsibility for the care and wellbeing of others, and the strain of night shifts and irregular hours.
What it means for your employees
Job groups become the backbone of your pay transparency work. They let you report on gender pay gaps by category of workers. Under the Directive, employees can request the average pay for their job group, broken down by gender. This means that it is very important that your HR team and managers have a clear understanding of how the job evaluation method works and can explain it to others.
Do you have to use the EIGE point factor method?
No. The EIGE guidelines are voluntary. Employers are free to adapt the EIGE point factor method, use a different method or keep their existing job evaluation method, as long as their pay structures rest on objective, gender-neutral criteria as EU law requires. It can also be used to review an existing system for signs of gender bias.
Bringing it all together
The EIGE point-factor method can give you a clear, defensible way to determine which jobs are of equal value. Every job is scored across the same set of subfactors, and jobs with similar scores are grouped together. Those groups become the foundation for your pay transparency reporting.
It is less complicated than it first looks. The key is to apply it consistently and to be able to explain it to your people.
SkillsTrust automates the EIGE point-factor method for small and medium sized EU employers. Our Job Profile Library contains 1,000+ job profiles, pre-scored by human job evaluation experts using the EIGE point-factor method. We do the complex scoring and reporting so you don't have to. Try it for free.
