Finding 1: The gender pay gap is heavily impacted by the large number of roles (and the over-representation of women in these roles) in grades 4, 5, 6 and 7
- In 2022, over 5,600 staff worked in Professional and Support roles in grades 4, 5, 6 and 7. On average, women accounted for 68% of staff in these grades; they were highest in grade 5 (72%).
- With such a large staff population, any turnover in these grades tends to impact the pay gap, primarily because we see a large number of women recruited into new roles, often starting lower on the salary scale.
Finding 2: There is a high proportion of women working part time, limiting progression into higher roles and likely impacting the gender pay gap
- In 2022, 26% of all Professional and Support staff worked part time; 80% were women and 20% were men.
- The number of staff working part time drops off significantly at grade 9, with far fewer part-time working opportunities in more senior roles.
- Although the number of staff working part time in Research roles is far smaller, women are still almost twice as likely as men to work part time. Part-time working in academic roles is rare.
Finding 3: There does not appear to be a gap in starting pay between women and men, although in some staff groups men are slightly more likely to start at the top of the salary scale, and women are slightly more likely to start at the bottom of the scale.
- The group did not find evidence of varying starting pay overall for women and men in the 2022 data
- However, we did see that particularly for Associate Professors, more men tend to start at the very top of the salary scale, and more women tend to start at the very bottom.
- There is a common perception that women tend not to negotiate starting salary in the way that men do, but we did not see this in the 2022 data.
Finding 4: Academic responsibility allowances are driving the gender pay gap in professorial roles
- The gender pay gap of 6.3% in academic roles shifts to a 0% gap if we remove additional responsibility and market pay allowances.
- Overall, the annual allowance value is not particularly different for men and women; it is mainly a case that more men than women are likely to have an allowance.
Finding 5: The pay gap is heavily influenced by the top quartile, because of the huge variance amongst the highest-paid staff
- If we remove the upper quartile of earners, (approximately 4,500 staff, comprised of 43% women and 57% men), this brings the mean pay gap down to 3.94% and the median pay gap down to 2.85%.
- This is largely due to the variation between the lowest-paid and highest-paid earners at the University.
