Gender Pay Gap

What is the gender pay gap?

The gender pay gap shows the difference in the hourly pay between men and women in the University. A positive percentage shows that on average men earn more than women and a negative average indicates that women earn more than men.

A gender pay gap is not a measure of unequal pay for the same or similar jobs and typically is reflective of a higher proportion of men occupying higher paid roles and a higher proportion of women occupying lower paid roles.

Equal pay is different to the gender pay gap and refers to a situation where there is a difference in pay between men and women doing the same job or work of equal value. In partnership with our recognised trades unions, UCU and Unite, the University uses the HERA job evaluation scheme to ensure that all jobs are evaluated and weighted using a standard set of criteria. 

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What information must be published?

The Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017, came into force on 31st March 2017, and requires employers with more than 250 employees to publish specific information on their gender pay gap. 

Specifically, this means publishing 6 calculations, in relation to hourly pay, pay quartiles and bonus pay for relevant employees.

What is our Gender Pay Gap? (as of 31st March 2024)?

Mean Average

The mean average pay gap is based on the hourly rate of pay calculated in accordance with the regulations.

Aston University currently has a mean average pay gap of 16.13% (down from 17.08% in 2023).

Median Average

The median gender pay gap is calculated listing the hourly pay for all relevant staff in numerical order. The median average is the middle number. Comparing the median average pay for men with the median average pay for women gives the median average pay gap.

At Aston University the current median average pay gap is 14.51% (down from 16.19% in 2023).

The data shows that our pay gap is primarily the result of having significantly more men in roles in the top quartile of pay and significantly more women than men in the bottom two quartiles of pay.

Pay Quartiles

The gender split between men and women in the top quartile of roles shows that 59.35% are occupied by men (up from 59.24% in 2023) and 40.65% are occupied by women (down from 40.76% in 2023).

In the upper middle quartile 46.46% of roles are occupied by men (down from 48.34% in 2023) and 53.54% are occupied by women (up from 53.54% in 2023).

In the lower middle quartile men represent 41.32% of the group (up from 41.07% in 2023) and women represent 58.68% (down from 58.93% in 2023).

In the lowest paid quartile of roles women are over-represented with 67.31% (down from 70.35% in 2023) as opposed to 32.69% of men (up from 29.65% in 2023).

Bonus Pay

Bonus pay is calculated using payments made to employees in the 12 months prior to the snapshot date of 31 March 2024.

The percentage of men receiving a bonus was 18.17% (up from 12.49% in 2023) and the percentage of women receiving a bonus was 28.8% (up from 16.24% in 2023).

The difference between the mean bonus paid to men and the mean bonus paid to women shows that on average women received bonuses 14.24% lower than men (down from 17.85% in 2023).

The difference between the median bonus paid to men and the median bonus paid to women shows that the median bonus was 100% higher (up from 0% in 2023).

The University Remuneration Committee decided in November 2018 to discontinue bonus payments to senior staff with immediate effect. Consequently, while other bonus payments will continue to be monitored to ensure equity, we expect to see that the bonus pay gender gap will be significantly reduced in future years.

Further actions have been identified to ensure that the gender pay gap at Aston and are set out in an action plan.