More than 3,500 current and former Next employees have won the final phase of a six-year legal battle for equal pay.

An employment tribunal ruled that store staff, who are predominantly women, should not have been paid less than warehouse workers, who are generally men.

Lawyers for the store employees described the ruling as “hugely significant” and said the amount of back payments owed could amount to more than £30 million.

However, Next announced that it would appeal the ruling.

Next argued that wages for warehouse workers were higher than for retail workers in the broader labour market, justifying the different wages within the company.

However, the labor court rejected this argument as a justification for the wage difference.

This means that women like Helen Scarsbrook, who has worked for Next for over 20 years, could receive thousands of pounds in compensation for the wages they have lost.

The 68-year-old from Eastleigh near Southampton, one of the lead plaintiffs in the case, said she was grateful the court had ruled in her favour.

“Anyone who works in retail knows it’s a physically and emotionally tough job,” she said.

“We lift a lot of heavy loads, just like the men in the camp. We lift the same boxes as them.”

Added to this is the unpredictability of customers, who are sometimes wonderful but sometimes challenging, she said.

“It’s a nice job but it’s not easy and it’s really undervalued financially and I just thought, ‘This has to stop,'” she told the BBC.

Ms Scarsbrook submitted her claim in 2018 and was seeking compensation for having been paid less than her male colleagues in the warehouse since 2012, six years ago.

It is likely to be several thousand pounds with which she could pay off her car loan, go on a “very nice” holiday or perhaps retire, she told the BBC.

Elizabeth George, a lawyer and partner at law firm Leigh Day, which is representing the workers, said the ruling was a “great encouragement” to workers in other sectors.

“Retail is not the only sector where there are clearly gender-segregated jobs, and you can see that the male-dominated market is more attractive than the female-dominated roles,” she said.

Employees at five of the UK’s largest supermarkets – Asda, Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s and Co-op – are also striving for equal pay. The companies are using the same arguments as Next to counter this, arguing that wages are market-based.

Ms George said she believes the ruling could lead to further cases, for example in the care, hospitality and construction sectors.

There have already been cases of underpayment of workers in the public sector, with teaching assistants and kitchen helpers receiving less pay than men working in garbage collection or similar jobs.

In a statement, Next said: “This is the first private sector class action on equal pay to result in a court decision and raises a number of important questions about legal principles.”

The company stressed that no claims of direct discrimination against female employees had been admitted and that the court had concluded that there was “no conscious or unconscious influence of gender on the way in which Next set salaries”.

More than 80% of Next’s store staff are women.

Lawyer George said: “(The court) rightly found that Next could have afforded a higher rate but did not and that the reason for this was purely financial.”

The discussion about market wages essentially leads to a “circular argument,” said George. She suggests that women should be paid less because they already get less elsewhere.

Leigh Day said the plaintiffs’ contracts would now be changed to achieve fairer wages.

Better conditions should also be granted to store staff in other areas where there were disagreements, such as the different calculation of night bonuses, paid rest breaks for warehouse employees and Sunday bonuses.

However, it is not yet clear whether other employees who are not directly involved in the case will also automatically see their employment conditions improved, she said.

The calculation of the back payments to which applicants are entitled should begin as soon as possible, said George.