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Creating and Publishing Gender Pay Gap Reports

Gender pay gap reports highlight gender pay discrepancies within an organisation, and help businesses to monitor trends, identify patterns and demonstrate progress towards achieving gender equality in the workplace. Publishing these reports every year is mandatory for companies with 250 employees or more.

Equal pay and gender pay gaps both deal with pay disparities at work, but they’re not to be confused as the same. Equal pay means that men and women performing equal work, or work of equal value, must receive equal pay. Whereas the gender pay gap measures the difference between men and women’s average earnings in an organisation.

What is the deadline to report on gender pay gaps?

Since April 2017, organisations in England, Scotland and Wales with a headcount of 250 or more on a certain date of the year (known as the snapshot date) are required to publish their gender pay gap information by the following year.

For businesses operating in the public sector, the snapshot date each year is 31 March, and the snapshot date for businesses in the private or voluntary sector each year is 5 April. This means that public sector companies need to publish their reports by latest 30 March, and other businesses by latest 4 April. 

If companies form part of a larger organisation or group, a gender pay gap report would need to be published for each separate ‘legal entity’.

Which employees could you count towards the 250 headcount?

Businesses must include the following types of employees when calculating their headcount for gender pay gap reporting:

  • people with a contract of employment with you (including those that work part-time, job-share or who are on leave)
  • self-employed people that have a contract to do work for you themselves
  • any partners on a salary, or limited liability partnership (LLP) members who you treat as employees on your payroll

You should not include any agency workers towards your headcount (such as the candidates that Tate places to fill temporary roles) as they would be part of the recruitment agency’s headcount. You must include employees on leave, such as sick leave or maternity leave, whilst they are on full pay. If any employees are receiving reduced pay because of leave, only include them in your headcount and bonus pay calculations, and not in other gender pay gap calculations.

Information to include in a gender pay gap report

When reporting on your gender pay gap, the key figures you need to submit include:

  • A mean gender pay gap for hourly pay (the percentage difference in average pay of men and women across an organisation)
  • A median gender pay gap for hourly pay (the difference between the midpoints in ranges of hourly earnings of men and women in a workforce)
  • A mean bonus gender pay gap
  • A median bonus gender pay gap
  • Proportion of men and women receiving a bonus payment
  • Proportion of men and women in each hourly quartile band (a pay quartile is calculated by listing the hourly rates for everyone across a business, then dividing them into four equal sized groups. The percentage of men and women in each group is then calculated).

Businesses (except most public sector employers) also need to submit a written statement that’s signed by a senior employee to confirm that all calculations provided in the report are accurate. Most companies choose to provide a narrative along with their written statement to explain why any gender pay gaps are present, and what action plans are in place to close the gaps.

When ready to be published, the gender pay gap report needs to be published on a company’s website for it to be accessed by employees and the public, and it needs to be available for 3 years. If companies that meet the criteria do not publish their gender pay gap reports on time and with accurate data, there will be penalties (court orders and fines) along with a reputational risk by receiving a ‘late badge’ on the gender pay gap service that’s visible to the public.

Playing your part to reduce the gender pay gap

Businesses shouldn’t be hesitant or afraid to publish their gender pay gap reports. It should be seen as an opportunity to identify any pay discrepancies within the organisation, and help to create a roadmap to help combat gender inequalities. Gender inequality is an issue that cannot be tackled by businesses alone, and will require society as a whole to address the wider social and economic causes of gender imbalance.

At Tate we welcome the opportunity to report on our gender pay gap figures each year, staying committed to creating an inclusive and diverse business that involve initiatives such as:

  • creating a workplace environment that encourages positive conversations that drive clear action to tackle any inequalities
  • addressing unconscious bias across all our recruitment processes
  • encouraging flexibility, including part-time work and hybrid working

For more insights, browse our thought leadership articles. Or to learn more about gender pay gap reporting requirements, visit the UK government website.

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