We are required by UK legislation to publish our Gender Pay Gap. The headline figures appear on the Government website.
Gender Pay Gap Reporting March 2024
Introduction
University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust is committed to providing outstanding patient care by ensuring we have a diverse, talented, and high performing workforce.
Our commitment is to ensure everyone can contribute to creating an inclusive and compassionate culture and that gender equity is considered throughout the staff members' life cycle.
We will enable the Trust to fulfil this ambition through our strategy and values; we are compassionate, we are proud, we are inclusive, and we are one team.
Gender Pay Gap (GPG) legislation was introduced in April 2017, requiring all employers with 250 or more employees to publish their GPG annually.
The legislation requires employers to carry out six calculations that show the difference between the average earnings of men and women at the Trust.
The gender pay gap is different to equal pay. Equal pay deals with the pay differences between men and women who carry out the same jobs, similar jobs or work of equal value. The gender pay gap shows the difference in average pay between men and women.
We are committed to ensuring that our pay practices are transparent, fair, and equitable. The Trust has adopted and implemented the national NHS Payment Scheme, which has undergone an equality analysis.
Our Workforce
Every job at the Trust is evaluated and placed within a grade. Grades vary by level of responsibility, and each grade has a specific pay range. Staff (clinical and non-clinical) will progress through the pay ranges as they develop their careers.
Some of our employees are appointed on fixed rate salaries such as our apprentices.
Analysis of our internal equality data indicates that 76% of our workforce are women and 24% of our workforce are men.
Gender Pay Gap
Our report details pay gap figures as of 31 March 2023, a brief analysis of why we have a pay gap and a list of our actions for 2024.
The Gender Pay Gap is defined as the difference between the mean or median hourly rate of pay of men and women.
The mean gender pay gap is the difference between the average hourly earnings of men and women.
The median hourly pay gap is the difference between the midpoints in the ranges of hourly earnings of men and women. Pay excludes payments overtime but includes enhancements for shifts and weekend working.
This year our mean gender pay gap has decreased by 4.2% to 23.8% and is calculated based on earnings as at the pay period which includes the 31.03.23. Our median gender pay gap has decreased by 3.9% to 9.1%.
This suggests that our pay gap is impacted by the highest male earners in the organisation. However, showing a gradual improvement between male and female earnings.
Why do we have a gender pay gap?
The gender pay gap shows an in-balance in the numbers of men and women across the whole workforce with proportionately more men in the upper quartile than other quartiles.
The medical consultant workforce is predominantly men (64.08%) and consultants are in the highest paid group of staff, which influences the gender pay gap.
We expect this to change as we see more women students in medical schools, leading to a change in the workforce profile overtime (historically there were more male medical students). The male consultant workforce last year was 64.06%.
There are historical differences in gender groups and clinical excellence awards within the consultancy workforce at a senior level that has had an impact. In addition, more women are part-time and receive pro-rated awards.
For administration and clerical, we have a pay gap of 14.53% (18%, 2022 and 19% in 2021) pay gap that shows a positive reduction compared to previous years. This change is showing a more balance workforce distribution in junior roles.
Bonus Gap
Proportion of men and women receiving a bonus
At the Trust only medical Consultants receive a payment that is classed as a bonus. The payments are called ‘Clinical Excellence Awards’ and come from the national contract for consultants, plus a separate local scheme. These awards are paid on a pro-rata basis linked to how many hours a week each Consultant works for the Trust.
UHL employs 813 Consultants – 36% were women in March 2023.
Proportion of employees who were paid a bonus by gender are:
1.73% of women received an Award (Bonus) pay compared to 10.46% of men (no change from previous year). The data helps to explain the mean bonus pay gap of 29.5% (last year 30%) and median 0% (last year 0%).
Pay Quartiles
Proportion of men and women in each pay quartile
Pay quartiles shows the proportion of women and men in each pay quartile: 76% (77% 2022) of staff are female, which reflects the NHS as a whole. The breakdown by the four quartiles shows:
Lower quartile shows 79.2% (81% 2022 and 80% 2021) women and 20.9% (19% 2022 and 20% 2021)
Upper quartile shows 64.5% (64% 2022 and 65% 2021) women and 35.5% (36% 2022 and 35% 2021) men.
Upper middle quartile show: 81.3% (81% 2022) women and 18.7% (19% 2022) men demonstrating that the gender pay gap is principally driven by the differences in the upper quartile.
Hourly Pay Quartiles
In order to complete the calculations the Trust is required to list all employees along with their gender in order of lowest hourly to highest hourly rate of pay.
The lowest pay quartile is 79.2% (81% in 2022) women and 20.9% men (19% in 2021).
The highest pay quartile is 64.5% women (64% in 2022) and 35.5% men (36% men in
2021).
Since the lower middle - 78.8% women and 21.2% men and upper middle quartiles are 81.3% female and 18.7% male, the gender pay gap is principally driven by the differences in the upper quartile.
Closing the Gap
We continue to develop practices that aim to achieve a gender balance across our workforce at every level. We will build on our initiatives to continually make a difference, which further reduces the gender pay gap and occupational segregation across our staff groups.
Our achievements during 2023:
Our data shows a trend in the right direction to improving the gap between both men and women.
Our progress in 2023:
- advanced recruitment, attraction and retention offer and approach by implementing varied methods that support diverse groups of people through the recruitment and selection process.
- revised flexible working policies and practices that provide options for different groups, supporting a work life balance.
- introduced training and development opportunities that support staff in their career aspirations and progression.
- applied a varied approach to practices that improve staff experiences based on gender, and beyond by our Chief People Officer, Executive Team and Trust Board; continually championing the agenda.
- continued development and implementation of best practice initiatives to support staff at work. The self-assessment tool also helped to identify gaps, which we aim to work on as part of our plans in 2024.
For 2024 we will:
Our 2024 actions are to build on our current activity to maximise opportunities. This includes:
- establishing a gender equality steering group with an associated workplan and executive champions for gender equality.
- extending our Active Bystander programme using an array of awareness and training platforms across the Trust.
- working with the Women in Medicine network and our wider staff networks to understand some of the broader gender issues.
- establishing a set of Gender Equality Metrics based on the WRES and WDES themes.
- actively work to address the gaps identified in the self-assessment, which are;
- targeting women to return after maternity leave;
- analysing data from a gender perspective by comparing the experiences of our male and female staff, particularly around the themes of equality, diversity and inclusion, line management and appraisals;
- supporting aspiring women leaders to access opportunities for development and career progression.
- identifying the number of female staff that have accessed activity such as Leadership, women’s network and what more can be done to improve engagement.
- gather data by service areas, departments and occupations, and across other protected characteristics to understand patterns and trends.
- extend our pay gap reporting by ethnicity to gain a better understanding of the difference in pay.
These actions are aligned to our Trust Strategic Plan.
Clare Teeney
Chief People Officer
Previous year reports
Gender Pay Gap report March 2020 (PDF)
Gender Pay Gap report March 2019 (PDF)
Gender Pay Gap report March 2018 (PDF)
All information is accurate at time of publishing (March 2024).
