Transparency data

2024 gender pay gap report

Published 17 December 2024

Introduction

In 2017, the government introduced world-leading legislation that made it statutory for organisations with 250 or more employees to report annually on their gender pay gap.

Government departments are also covered by the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017, which came into force on 31 March 2017. These regulations underpin the public sector equality duty and require relevant organisations to publish their gender pay gap by 30 March annually. This includes the:

• mean and median gender pay gaps
• mean and median gender bonus gaps
• proportion of men and women who received bonuses
• proportions of male and female employees in each pay quartile

This report fulfils the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and its executive agencies’ reporting requirements, analyses the figures in more detail and sets out what the department and its agencies are doing to reduce the gender pay gap. The reporting period is 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024.

The report covers DHSC (core department) and its 2 executive agencies, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). The individual organisations hold the responsibility of analysing their reward mechanisms (such as pay and bonuses) to assure themselves that there is no gender bias.

DHSC and its executive agencies are committed to the fair treatment and reward of all staff, addressing inequality and ensuring equality of opportunity for all staff. DHSC and its executive agencies’ pay approach is based on the principles of consistency, fairness and transparency, supporting the fair treatment and reward of all staff irrespective of gender.

Building a diverse and inclusive workforce that reflects the people we serve is one of the Civil Service’s top workforce priorities. The Civil Service should create opportunities for all in a truly meritocratic way and reward all civil servants fairly, regardless of gender, ethnicity or any other personal characteristic.

Gender pay gap report

The gender pay gap shows the difference in the average pay between all men and women in a workforce. If a workforce has a particularly high gender pay gap, this can indicate that there may be a number of issues to deal with.

The gender pay gap is different from 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. It is unlawful to pay people unequally because they are a man or a woman.

For this report, hourly pay is calculated using base pay, allowances and bonuses paid in the relevant pay period as defined in the regulations.

The 2024 gender pay gap figures are set out below. In all tables, ‘Health and social care’ refers to the overall figures from DHSC, UKHSA and MHRA.

Pay and bonus gaps

Table 1: pay and bonus gaps by reporting organisation

Reporting organisation	Mean pay gap	Median pay gap	Mean bonus gap	Median bonus gap
DHSC	3.5%	3.6%	0.9%	0.0%
MHRA	7.7%	13.9%	-8.6%	0.0%
UKHSA	9.9%	7.9%	20.8%	0.0%
Health and social care	7.8%	13.9%	8.7%	0.0%

Table 2: percentage of men and women receiving a bonus by reporting organisation

Reporting organisation	Men	Women
DHSC	76.8%	75.6%
MHRA	48.0%	47.1%
UKHSA	30.6%	37.5%
Health and social care	47.4%	50.4%

Table 3: percentage of women in each pay quartile by reporting organisation

Reporting organisation	Lower	Lower middle	Upper middle	Upper
DHSC	65.8%	65.9%	62.9%	61.1%
MHRA	63.8%	64.5%	60.4%	54.5%
UKHSA	70.3%	68.4%	64.7%	55.5%
Health and social care	68.0%	67.3%	62.7%	58.0%

Workforce analysis

Table 4 below shows the distribution of men and women across each grade for health and social care. While the most senior grades (Senior Civil Service, SCS) are broadly balanced between men and women, women are over-represented throughout the junior grades.

Table 4: distribution of men and women across each grade for health and social care workforce

Grade (decreasing seniority)	Number of men (% of total male workforce)	Number of women (% of total female workforce)	% of women in the grade
SCS	311 (8.5%)	411 (6.5%)	57.8%
Grade 6 and 7	1,538 (48.1%)	2,360 (46.0%)	63.0%
Senior executive officer (SEO) and higher executive officer (HEO)	1,376 (34.6%)	2,739 (37.5%)	65.9%
Executive officer (EO)	335 (7.4%)	841 (8.9%)	68.2%
Administrative assistant (AA) and administrative officer (AO)	204 (1.4%)	424 (1.1%)	58.5%
Total	3,764	6,775	64.1%

Note: DHSC and UKHSA workforces include different sets of terms and conditions with different pay scales and arrangements. The majority (approximately 75%) of the workforce fall under the standard Civil Service pay arrangements and grade framework. The remaining workforce are on the NHS (Agenda for Change and Executive and Senior Manager) pay frameworks or on medical and dental terms and conditions. While the entire workforce is included in the DHSC and DHSC gender pay gap figure, the range of different pay arrangements results in a more complex relationship impacting on the gender pay gap figure.

The pay gap

DHSC and its executive agencies are structured using Civil Service grades ranging from AA to SCS. Grades reflect levels of responsibility and each has a set pay range. Staff are subject to an annual pay review and receive pay increases upon promotion.

The health and social care mean pay gap has reduced to 7.8%. This represents a 0.5 percentage point reduction from 2023 and a 6.4 percentage point reduction from 2017 (when reporting began). The median pay gap has seen an increase to 13.9%. This represents a 4.8 percentage point increase from 2023 and a 0.6 percentage point increase from 2017.

There remains a gap in pay between men and women, though the mean pay gap is on a positive trajectory overall. The mean pay gap remains below the UK average of 13.1% in 2024.^{[footnote 1]}

The difference in hourly pay is driven by a number of factors including:

• the compounding effect of a higher proportion of men in the most highly paid SCS grades, and a higher proportion of women in the most junior grades. This is particularly the case for the executive agencies
• the disproportionate impact on the pay gap by a number of very senior and highly paid roles held by men

Proportion of men and women in each pay quartile

In the lower quartile, 68.0% of employees are female, compared to 58.0% in the upper quartile. The disproportionate distribution of men across the organisation (with men over-represented at more senior and more highly paid grades) is one of the factors driving the gender pay and bonus gaps. It has more of an impact on the bonus figure, as at the most senior levels there is more bonus opportunity and the level of bonuses are considerably higher.

The bonus gap

In DHSC and its executive agencies, end of year performance awards were paid as a set value depending on grade and performance. DHSC and its executive agencies only pay in-year awards to grades below SCS with the aim of spreading financial recognition to a wider population.

The bonus pay gap is driven by the opportunity for higher bonuses in the most senior grades where the proportion of men is not in line with the overall population.

Health and social care’s mean bonus gap saw an increase in 2024 to 8.7%. This represents a 5.2 percentage point increase from 2023, a 9.9 percentage point reduction from 2022 and a 24.4 percentage point reduction from 2017, when reporting began.

The mean bonus gap is driven by an over-representation of men in the most senior grades where the bonus potential is highest, and over-representation of women in the junior grades.

The median bonus gap is 0.0%. This is an increase of 25 percentage points from 2023, when the median bonus gap was -25.0%, however this is consistent with health and social care’s position in 2022, and represents a 10.4 percentage point reduction from 2017, when reporting began. This reduction is a result of health and social care having a higher number of female employees and a higher proportion of staff receiving bonuses in 2024.

Targeted action to reduce the gender pay gap

Since the publication of the 2023 gender pay gap report, DHSC and its executive agencies have taken a number of steps to reduce the gender pay gap.

DHSC and its agencies are addressing the gender pay gap through a range of actions within workstreams, including those outlined below.

Recruitment

We are ensuring the fairness and equality of recruitment, including:

• ‘name blind’ external recruitment
• diverse recruitment panels
• use of systems data to understand outcomes for gender in our workforce

We are also exploring upskilling of colleagues in inclusive recruitment practices and application and interview support workshops for internal candidates, in collaboration with staff networks.

Governance

We are introducing refreshed governance, so that the Executive Committee reviews and discusses equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) on a biannual basis, providing strategic oversight and accountability. This is alongside biannual discussions with the departmental People Board on the specific EDI interventions for the departmental workforce.

Talent and career progression

There is a renewed focus on talent, progression, and career paths such as:

• working towards a more balanced gender representation across the grades through promoting developmental and talent opportunities and mentoring schemes
• providing visibility to SCS leaders
• a focus on line manager capability to ensure every colleague is supported in their career development

Policies promoting equality in the workplace

Policies focused on supporting wider equality within the workplace include:

• renewing DHSC’s Disability Confident Leader status in 2024
• the use of fair, consistent and inclusive working models supported by flexible working policies such as the development of new hybrid working models and shared parental leave

Culture

We are also continuing to build an inclusive culture with initiatives such as:

• developing a 5-year inclusion plan focusing on tackling ‘disparities’ as a central part of everything we do
• our Great Place to Work initiative, which will hold inclusion as a central part of our continuous improvement agenda

Senior Civil Service leadership

There is a mandatory diversity and inclusion (D&I) objective for SCS leadership to ensure inclusive decision making at all levels. This includes members of DHSC’s Executive Committee acting as senior diversity champions, encouraging visibility of equality, diversity and inclusion.

We are continuing to develop the capability of our leaders to promote a diverse and inclusive culture through support, empowerment and accountability. This includes a reverse mentoring scheme for under-represented groups, which aims to raise awareness in areas such as inclusive practice, bias and the potential impacts they have on progression and organisational team culture.

Declaration

We confirm that data reported by DHSC and its executive agencies is accurate and has been calculated according to the requirements and methodology set out in the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017.

1. Office for National Statistics. Gender pay gap in the UK: 2024. (Accessed 9 December 2024) ↩