UK gender pay gap reporting
In 2017 the UK Government introduced regulations for gender pay gap reporting for companies in the UK. The regulations are intended to encourage employers to take informed action to close their gender pay gaps where one exists.
Using the snapshot date of 5th April 2021, as required by the regulations, we have published our gender pay data for our UK workforce. This includes all our UK legal entities and includes all relevant employees.
The Gender Pay Gap is different to Equal Pay
The gender pay gap shows the difference between the average hourly earnings of men and women across the workforce, irrespective of their role. Its purpose is about addressing the representation of women in the workforce.
It is worth highlighting equal pay is different to gender pay gap. Equal pay is about whether a woman and a man performing the same work, at the same level, in the same organisation receive the same pay and is legislative requirement with which we comply and is not further addressed in this report.
There are a number of calculations that we report in our gender pay gap data:
- Mean (average) and median (mid-point) gender pay gap in hourly pay and bonus pay of male and female employees. This is expressed as a percentage of male employees’ earnings.
- Proportion of men and women who receive a bonus
- Distribution of men and women across pay quartiles
This shows a downward trend from the 2020 Gender Pay Report which reported a 17.5% median pay gap and a 23.5% mean pay gap. And compares positively to our first Gender Pay Report in 2017 which reported a 20.6% median pay gap and a 27.6% mean pay gap.
To provide further context to the figures above, the majority of our team (60%) in 2021 are employed in Production positions and this area has a relatively even mix between males and females (52% female / 48% male). When we review the pay gap percentages within this discreet population, the mean pay gap is 8.1% and the median pay gap is 14.1%. We believe the key driver for this remaining pay gap is due to more females being employed in Production roles which do not attract shift premiums.
Elsewhere in our business, we employ a range of positions including Engineering, R&D, Sales, Operations Management and a variety of support functions. Within this population, males occupy 71% of roles and we believe our overall UK pay gap is significantly driven by this mix. Due to the nature of our business, managerial and staff roles are predominately filled with people who have qualifications and experience in engineering and STEM related fields. It is this background that we believe has led to a smaller pool of female talent being employed and hired.
Proportion of employees who receive a bonus (in 12 months preceding 5 April 2021)
All employees continue to have an equal opportunity to participate in a bonus programme. Similar to the past two years, a higher proportion of females received a bonus payment than males in the 12 months preceding 5th April 2021 (97.6% of females received a bonus compared with 96.4% of males).
Gender pay gap in Bonus (at 5th April 2021)
Bonus gender pay gap (earned in 12 months preceding 5 April 2021). These figures show the mean (average) and median (mid-point) bonus gap.
The mean (average) bonus gap has continued a downward trend, reducing to 15.75% and the median gap is 0% for the second year, meaning male and female median bonus was identical. When we review this measurement within the discreet Production population, the median gap is also 0% and the mean gap is -3.5%, meaning female production workers received a higher mean bonus value than males.
The remaining bonus gap is therefore attributed to the lower representation of females in non-production roles and specifically in those roles which attract a sales or management level of bonus.
The charts below show the gender distribution across our UK business in four quartiles based on pay bands.
Compared to previous years, at the snapshot date (5th April 2021) there continues to be small shifts in female representation in the lower and upper quartiles. Specifically, there is an increasing mix in the first quartile with approx. 7% fewer females than reported in 2017 and the number of females in the fourth quartile has increased approx. 5.5% than reported in 2017.
| Pay Quartile | Women | Men |
| Participation in 1st quartile | 69.0% | 31.0% |
| Participation in 2nd quartile | 49.3% | 50.7% |
| Participation in 3rd quartile | 27.1% | 72.9% |
| Participation in 4th quartile | 22.9% | 77.1% |
Our actions
We have continued to see small improvements year on year, across the variety of metrics contained in this report since first publishing in 2017. However, we recognise there continues to be a need to increase female representation in STEM roles. We believe this long-term goal reflects the wider Industry backdrop in the UK and we continue to seek opportunities to be a part of that change.
Within recruitment, the Group has recently refreshed all external recruitment branding to attract a more diverse workforce and this is also being adopted in the UK. We are also investing in detailed succession planning and have increased the learning and development resources available to our team members as part of our commitment to develop and retain our existing employees and ensuring employees have equal access to internal development opportunities.
Further information
The method for calculating the gender pay gap figures has been outlined by the UK Government and the results from every qualifying UK organisation will be published here.
We confirm the information and data reported is accurate as of the snapshot date 5 April 2021.