Transparency data

HM Land Registry: gender pay gap report 2023

Updated 9 February 2024

Applies to England and Wales

Analysis of our 2023 gender pay gap data suggests the actions we have taken to reduce the pay gap continue to have a positive effect. While our mean gender pay gap increased from 5.7% to 5.9% this year, our median gender pay gap reduced from 1.7% to 0%.

Our gender pay gap remains broadly stable. It derives principally from the higher proportion of women in our administrative grades. While we pay women the same rate as men for doing the same job, their higher representation within these grades brings down the average pay for women compared with men.

As of 31 March 2023, 61% of HM Land Registry’s employees were women. Women make up 63% of our Administrative Assistant and Administrative Officer grades, and 66% of our largest grade, Executive Officer (EO).

Despite a small decline in the proportion of women in our upper pay quartile, there are more women than men in every pay quartile. It should be noted that, due to the high proportion of HM Land Registry staff at HEO grade and below, our upper quartile consists of some staff at HEO grade and all grades at SEO and above.

The slight increase in our mean pay gap, from 5.7% to 5.9%, can be attributable to the greater success of women in recruitment exercises and internal progression schemes at HEO grade and below. While proportion of women at EO and HEO grade remains the same as last year, the actual number of women in these grades is higher.

Our mean bonus pay gap reduced from 4.9% to 3.9%. Women are more highly rated through our performance appraisal scheme than men and more women than men received a performance bonus in 2022/23. However, the bonus pay gap exists because performance bonuses are pro-rated and more women work part-time than men.

We continue to compare favourably with the overall mean and median gender pay gaps for the Civil Service (8.1% and 9.6% respectively in 2023). 

We also compare favourably with the mean and median bonus GPG for the Civil Service (23.5% and 25.4% respectively in 2023).

While our employment opportunities, working practices and inclusive culture continue to attract women into our workforce at all levels, a significant reduction in our gender pay gap will remain a challenge.

We recognise the opportunities that pay gap analysis and reporting provide to make sure our policies and practices are fair and equitable. We understand that change of this nature will take time to effect, and we reaffirm our commitment to minimising our gender pay gap through longer-term legacy actions, which support and encourage women in our workforce and create and maintain a culture in which they can thrive.

1. Introduction

Under the terms of the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017, HM Land Registry, like other public authorities, is required to annually publish its gender pay gap information.

To fulfil this legal requirement, HM Land Registry has prepared information on:

• the mean and median gender pay gaps in hourly pay
• the mean and median gender bonus pay gaps
• the proportion of men and women who receive bonuses
• the proportion of men and women full-pay relevant employees in each pay quartile

The reporting period is 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023.

HM Land Registry uses the standard civil service grading system, ranging from Administrative Assistant (AA) to Senior Civil Service (SCS). However, we also use 2 unique grades, SEO+ and Grade 7 Lawyer which were implemented to meet the specific needs of the organisation.

Since 2021, HM Land Registry has increased its workforce by 419 (6.5%). Except for the Administrative Officer grade, there were headcount increases in most grades.

Grade	Headcount
	31/03/2023	31/03/2022	31/03/2021
APP (apprentice)	25	35	27
AA	1	1	2
AO	1,664	1,725	1,839
EO	2,459	2,383	2,170
HEO	1,458	1,358	1,291
SEO	693	688	621
SEO+	158	154	118
Grade 7	134	133	121
Grade 7 Lawyers	124	112	121
Grade 6	67	61	57
SCS	29	27	26
Total	6,812	6,677	6,393

Delegated grades – AA to Grade 6

As a Civil Service department, HM Land Registry is governed by public sector pay policy as set out in the Civil Service Pay Guidance for delegated grades. Pay guidance defines the overall financial parameters for Civil Service pay awards each year to ensure that these awards are consistent with the government’s overall objectives.

HM Land Registry has 14 offices across England and Wales. We operate a national pay rate and an enhanced London pay rate to reflect the higher cost of living in the South-East.

In HM Land Registry, the AA to HEO grades consist of a single spot rate of pay. Grades between SEO and G6 have pay ranges consisting of a minimum and maximum rate of basic pay. Movement through these ranges is via annual pay awards.

Senior Civil Service

The Senior Civil Service (SCS) is covered by separate SCS pay guidance published by government. Pay and grading for the SCS across the Civil Service is governed by the Cabinet Office. Within HM Land Registry, the SCS structure consists of 2 grades: Deputy Director (SCS1) and Director (SCS2). Each grade has a set pay range within a minimum and maximum rate of basic pay.

Diversity and inclusion strategy

During 2022/23, we have continued to implement our diversity and inclusion strategy, focused on improving representation within our workforce, creating an inclusive culture, and embedding diversity and inclusion outcomes. We continue to offer family friendly policies accompanied by line manager forums and communications to remind colleagues of the breadth of advice and support. We remain focused on the development of women, and we offer access to Women into leadership events and support and encourage women to take up development opportunities. We support networks with time and advice and our Women’s network is now the largest of our groups, with channels dedicated to menopause and parents offering peer to peer support and signposting advice and support. Traditionally, women undertake primary caring roles, and we have a carer’s support group who provide mutual support and sources of advice.

2. Gender pay gap report

The gender pay gap shows the difference in the average pay between all men and women in a workforce. It is expressed as a percentage of earnings for men. If a workforce has a particularly high gender pay gap, this can indicate that there may be issues to deal with, and the individual calculations may help identify what those issues are.

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. It is unlawful to pay people unequally because they are a man or a woman.

Each full-pay relevant employee’s hourly rate of pay has been determined using full-time equivalent salaries and contracted weekly hours. Permanent and pensionable allowances, non-consolidated performance payments, and salary sacrifice deductions are all incorporated to ensure that the methodology is consistent with reports produced in previous years.

The legislation and the standard calculation methodology used throughout the Civil Service relates only to the pay of men and women. By publishing our data accordingly, HM Land Registry is not intending to make any comment on intersex people or those with non-binary gender identities.

HM Land Registry’s 2023 gender pay gap figures

All data represents the position as at 31 March in any given year.

	2023	2022
Gender pay gap
Mean gender pay gap	5.9%	5.7%
Median gender pay gap	0%	1.7%
Bonus gap
Mean bonus gap	3.9%	4.9%
Median bonus gap	0%	0%

Percentage of men and women receiving a bonus

	2023	2022
% Men receiving a bonus	40.5%	37.2%
% Women receiving a bonus	42.1%	38.3%

We pay ‘end of year’ non-consolidated performance awards. In the financial year 2021 to 2022, to be eligible for HM Land Registry’s end of year non-consolidated performance award, employees had to be in HM Land Registry employment on 1 June 2022.

Distribution of women through each pay quartile

	2023	2022
% Women in lower quartile	63.1%	62.6%
% Women in lower middle quartile	64%	67.8%
% Women in upper middle quartile	64.9%	59%
% Women in upper quartile	50.4%	52.4%

The table above shows the percentage of women in each pay quartile in HM Land Registry. Pay quartiles are created by ranking each full-time employee in order from the lowest earning (lower quartile) to highest earning (upper quartile). 

There are more women than men in every pay quartile. This demonstrates that there are no substantial barriers to women being able to access jobs within HM Land Registry in the upper pay quartile.

Grade (decreasing seniority)	Number of men (% of total male workforce)		Number of women (% of total female workforce)		% of women in the grade
SCS	14	1%	15	0%	52%
Grade 6/7	143	5%	182	4%	56%
SEO+/SEO/HEO	1,043	39%	1,266	31%	55%
EO	835	31%	1,624	39%	66%
APP/AA/AO	640	24%	1,050	25%	62%
Total	2,675	100%	4,137	100%	61%

The table above shows the distribution of men and women across grades within HM Land Registry. While there are more women than men in the SEO+/SEO/HEO grade group, there is a higher proportion of the total male workforce at these grades than the female workforce. This is principally because of the higher proportion of the female workforce at EO and AA/AO grades.

3. Analysis of pay gap

Mean pay gap

	2023	2022	2021	2020
Gender pay gap
Mean gender pay gap	5.9%	5.7%	7.5%	8.5%

The mean gender pay gap figure uses hourly pay of all employees to calculate the difference between the mean hourly pay of men, and the mean hourly pay of women.

The 0.2% increase in our mean pay gap, can be attributable to the greater success of women in recruitment exercises and internal progression schemes at HEO grade and below. While the proportion of women at EO and HEO grade remains the same as last year, the actual number of women in these grades is higher.

As of 31 March 2023, 61% of HM Land Registry’s employees were women. There are more women than men in each grade group. However, the higher proportion of women in our high-volume AO and EO grades (63% and 66% respectively) acts to bring down the average pay for women.

Median pay gap

	2023	2022	2021	2020
Gender pay gap
Median gender pay gap	0%	1.7%	0%	13.7%

The median pay gap is the difference between the hourly pay of the median man and the hourly pay of the median woman. The median for each is the man or woman who is in the middle of a list of hourly pay ordered from highest to lowest.

The relatively small decrease in our median pay gap this year, from 1.7% to 0%, shows the effect of recruitment and growth.

4. Analysis of the bonus gap

	2023	2022	2021
Bonus pay gap
Mean bonus gap	3.9%	4.9%	7.3%
Median bonus gap	0%	0%	6.7%

HM Land Registry follows the standard Civil Service approach to pay and reward, and an agreed fund, based on a fixed percentage of the total pay-bill, is reserved for payment of non-consolidated, non-pensionable awards linked to performance.

HM Land Registry made end-of-year non-consolidated performance awards, which are pro-rated for part-time employees. HM Land Registry pays 2 rates of end-of-year performance awards: a higher rate for employees assessed as ‘exceeding’ through our performance management system and a lower rate for employees assessed as ‘high performing’.

	2023	2022	2021
% Men receiving a bonus	40.5%	37.2%	43.0%
% Women receiving a bonus	42.1%	38.3%	44.6%

More women than men proportionately and in real terms earned a performance bonus in 2022/23. More women than men were paid the higher value performance bonus. However, the bonus pay gap exists because performance bonuses are pro-rated and more women work part-time than men.

5. Targeted action to reduce and close the gender pay gap

We review our activity on a regular basis and amend or replace actions as required.

Our external actions include:

• using inclusive language in job adverts and ensuring the wording is gender neutral through use of algorithms
• ensuring applications are name blind and we offer structured interviews with the same questions used across candidates to remove any bias
• offering flexible working as standard in all our job descriptions – women are most highly represented in senior roles where there is correspondingly the highest number of part-time working opportunities
• broader advertising of all flexible vacancies, including Timewise Jobs and Mumsnet
• monitoring representation on recruitment panels, to make sure there is a diverse mix
• developing insight sessions on our application and interview processes

Our internal actions included:

• offering transparent pay, promotion, and reward processes
• helping recruiting managers to attract diverse applicants by asking them to consider flexibility in their person specification, such as minimum hours, suitable working patterns and only using essential criteria (studies show that women are more likely to hesitate in applying for a job if they do not meet all the listed requirements)
• promoting job-share opportunities
• challenging common misconceptions around part-time working
• promoting understanding of the menopause with a menopause policy and toolkit
• supporting attendance at Women into leadership events
• supporting a Women’s network who advocate for women in HM Land Registry and their development including a subgroup specially for menopause
• carers and parents have dedicated network space to offer advice and support
• mentoring and coaching encouraged for all
• continuing to offer parental and family friendly policies

6. Declaration

I confirm that data reported by HM Land Registry 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.

Simon Morris, HR Director