The gender pay gap is a measure across all jobs in UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), not of the difference in pay between males and females for doing the same job.
UKRI’s mean gender pay gap (GPG) has narrowed by 0.6 percentage points since 2022.The figures show that in 2024, UKRI’s mean gender pay gap was 9.0%, 1.3 percentage points higher than the UK national GPG, which stood at 7.7% in 2023.
In other words, for every £1 that males earned, on average females earned 91p.
However, the most recent data has shown a widening by 0.7 percentage points in the last year, and the median GPG has increased by 2.5 percentage points.
The change is largely driven by the 2022 pay award, which increased the salaries of employees in research delivery roles to address external pay market pressures. In this cohort there is a higher proportion of males than females compared to the total UKRI employee population.
A central part of our vision
Commenting on the report, Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser, Chief Executive, UKRI said:
Equality, diversity and inclusion are a central part of our vision for an outstanding research and innovation system to which everybody can contribute and from which everyone benefits.
While there is a downward trend in our mean gender pay gap, progress is slow and there is much more to do to understand what drives our gender pay gap and to address it, some of which we set out in this report.
Further information
For the fourth time UKRI has also published its ethnicity pay gap. This details the difference in average pay of minority ethnic employees compared to the average pay of White British employees, regardless of the level or type of work carried out.
The report also includes details about some of UKRI’s workforce equality, diversity and inclusion priorities, which contribute to narrowing its gender pay gap.
