HM Land Registry: gender pay gap report 2024
Updated 25 March 2025
Applies to England and Wales
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Analysis of our 2024 gender pay gap data suggests the actions we have taken to reduce the pay gap continue to have a broadly positive effect.
While our median gender pay gap increased from 0% to 8.2%, our mean gender pay gap reduced from 5.9% to 5.6% this year.
Our gender pay gap is derived 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 2024, 61% of HM Land Registry’s employees were women. Women make up 62% of our Administrative Officer grade, and 65% of our largest grade, Executive Officer (EO).
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.
Our mean gender pay gap is the lowest it has been in the last 5 years. The reduction this year can be attributable to the higher percentage of the female workforce at HEO grade and above (79% this year compared with 74% last year).
Our median pay gap has risen from 0% to 8.2%. The median pay gap calculation takes account of circumstantial differences in the pay of the median man and median woman on 31 March 2024: for example, if one is on national pay while the other is on London pay, or if one receives a skills and qualifications allowance while the other does not. For this reason, the median pay gap should be expected to vary from year to year. In 2024, the median man received an IT allowance while the median woman did not.
Our median bonus pay gap remained stable at 0%, although the mean bonus pay gap increased from 3.9% to 7.4%. 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 in part because performance bonuses are pro-rated and more women work part-time than men. The increase in the mean bonus pay gap was due to bonus payments to members of the Senior Civil Service. If these were excluded, the mean bonus pay gap would have reduced to 2.7%.
We continue to compare favourably with the overall median and mean gender pay gaps for the Civil Service (8.5% and 7.4% respectively in 2024).
We also compare favourably with the median and mean bonus GPG for the Civil Service (22.4% and 25.7% respectively in 2024).
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 2023 to 31 March 2024.
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 department.
Since 2021, HM Land Registry has increased its workforce by 603 (9.4%). There were headcount increases in most grades, with a reduction in the number of Administrative Officers.
| Grade | Headcount | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31/03/2024 | 31/03/2023 | 31/03/2022 | 31/03/2021 | |
| APP | 17 | 25 | 35 | 27 |
| AA | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| AO | 1,456 | 1,664 | 1,725 | 1,839 |
| EO | 2,687 | 2,459 | 2,383 | 2,170 |
| HEO | 1,592 | 1,458 | 1,358 | 1,291 |
| SEO | 711 | 693 | 688 | 621 |
| SEO+ | 165 | 158 | 154 | 118 |
| Grade 7 | 140 | 134 | 133 | 121 |
| Grade 7 Lawyers | 129 | 124 | 112 | 121 |
| Grade 6 | 72 | 67 | 61 | 57 |
| SCS | 27 | 29 | 27 | 26 |
| Total | 6,996 | 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-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.
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 Gender Pay Gap figures
All data represents the position as at 31 March in any given year.
| 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gender pay gap | |||
| Mean gender pay gap | 5.6% | 5.9% | 5.7% |
| Median gender pay gap | 8.2% | 0% | 1.7% |
| Bonus gap | |||
| Mean bonus gap | 7.4% | 3.9% | 4.9% |
| Median bonus gap | 0% | 0% | 0% |
Percentage of men and women receiving a bonus
| 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| % Men receiving a bonus | 39.9% | 40.5% | 37.2% |
| % Women receiving a bonus | 41.5% | 42.1% | 38.3% |
We pay ‘end of year’ non-consolidated performance awards. In the financial year 2022 to 2023, 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 2023.
Distribution of women through each pay quartile
| 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| % Women in lower quartile | 64.1% | 63.1% | 62.6% |
| % Women in lower middle quartile | 60.5% | 64% | 67.8% |
| % Women in upper middle quartile | 65.2% | 64.9% | 59% |
| % Women in upper quartile | 52.5% | 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.
Table 4: Percentage of male/female by grade
| Grade (decreasing seniority) | Number of men (% of total male workforce) | Number of women (% of total female workforce) | % of women in the grade | % of women in the grade (2023) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SCS | 16 | 1% | 11 | 0% | 41% | 52% |
| Grade 6/7 | 143 | 5% | 198 | 5% | 58% | 56% |
| SEO+/SEO/HEO | 1,079 | 39% | 1,389 | 33% | 56% | 55% |
| EO | 932 | 34% | 1,755 | 41% | 65% | 66% |
| APP/AA/AO | 565 | 21% | 908 | 21% | 62% | 62% |
| Total | 2,735 | 100% | 4,261 | 100% | 61% | 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 the EO grade.
3. Analysis of pay gap
Mean pay gap
| 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gender pay gap | |||||
| Mean gender pay gap | 5.6% | 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 mean gender pay gap is the lowest it has been in the last 5 years. The reduction this year can be attributable to the higher percentage of the female workforce at HEO grade and above (79% this year compared with 74% last year).
As of 31 March 2024, 61% of HM Land Registry’s employees were women. Except for the SCS grades, there are more women than men in each grade group. However, the higher proportion of women in our high-volume AO and EO grades (62% and 66% respectively) acts to bring down the average pay for women.
Median pay gap
| 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gender pay gap | |||||
| Median gender pay gap | 8.2% | 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.
Our median pay gap rose from 0% to 8.2%.
Unlike the mean gender pay gap calculation, there can be significant annual variations in the median gender pay gap because the calculation methodology necessarily takes account of circumstantial differences in pay of the median man and median woman. The stability of our mean gender pay gap figure shows that there has not been a detrimental shift in pay policies to adversely affect the pay gap.
Both the median man and median woman are at EO grade, which has a single spot rate of pay. Differences in pay for the median man and median woman on 31 March 2024 can arise, for example, because the man receives enhanced London pay while the woman is based in a regional office, or the man undertakes a role that attracts a skills and qualification allowance while the woman does not. If the man occupying the median position on the date the date the data is run receives enhanced London pay or an allowance while the women occupying the median position does not, then a pay gap is likely to occur. It is highly unlikely that the median man and woman would be the same people in successive years and therefore these circumstantial differences should be expected to vary from year to year. In 2024, the median man received an IT allowance while the median woman did not.
4. Analysis of the bonus gap
| 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bonus pay gap | ||||
| Mean bonus gap | 7.4% | 3.9% | 4.9% | 7.3% |
| Median bonus gap | 0% | 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’.
HM Land Registry also makes non-consolidated performance awards to members of the SCS in accordance with the practitioner guidance on the SCS Pay Framework.
| 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| % Men receiving a bonus | 39.9% | 40.5% | 37.2% | 43.0% |
| % Women receiving a bonus | 41.5% | 42.1% | 38.3% | 44.6% |
More women than men proportionately and in real terms earned a performance bonus in 2023/24. More women than men were paid the higher value performance bonus. However, the bonus pay gap exists in part because performance bonuses are pro-rated and more women work part-time than men. The increase in the mean bonus pay gap this year was due to bonus payments to members of the Senior Civil Service. If these were excluded, the mean bonus pay gap would have reduced to 2.7%.
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 offering structured interviews with the same questions used across candidates to remove any bias
- offering flexible working and hybrid working as standard
- broader advertising of all flexible vacancies
- monitoring representation on recruitment panels, to make sure these are balanced
- 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)
- challenging common misconceptions around part-time working
- promoting understanding of the menopause with a menopause policy and toolkit
- supporting a women’s network who advocate for women in HM Land Registry and their development including a dedicated menopause subgroup which offers support and advice to members
- 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
- implementing the legal duty to take reasonable steps to prevent the sexual harassment of employees in the course of their employment
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