Transparency data

UKEF gender pay gap report 2021 to 2022

Published 29 March 2023

Gender pay gap

This report is published in line with Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017 which came into effect on 31 March 2017 and require organisations with 250 or more employees to publish their gender pay gap data annually. Published data should include mean and median gender pay gaps; the mean and median gender bonus gaps; the proportion of men and women who received bonuses; and the proportions of male and female employees in each pay quartile.

The gender pay gap (GPG) 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 there may be a number of issues to deal with, and the individual calculations may help to identify what those issues are.

The GPG 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 for the same work because they are a man or a woman.

This report sets out the figures in more detail and what we are doing to close the gender pay gap in the organisation.

Gender make-up of the department

As of 31 March 2022, UKEF had 495 employees, of whom 44% identified as female, this represents a 6% increase in female employees from 2021.

5.86% of UKEF employees were graded Senior Civil Servants (SCS); of these 28% identified as female, this was a decrease from 33% in 2021.

The proportion of female employees at UKEF has increased steadily over the last six years and the department has set a target to have 45% of its employees as female by 2024.

Impact over the last 6 years

	16/17	17/18	18/19	19/20	20/21	21/22
Number of employees	264	305	321	340	398	495
% female	36%	38%	39%	37%	38%	44%
% of employees SCS	4%	6%	5.30%	6.18%	6.78%	5.86%
% of SCS are female	20%	24%	29%	29%	33%	28%

Analysis by grade

Year	19/20		20/21		21/22
	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female
AA / AO	4	5	4	3	2	1
EO	28	21	22	24	22	41
HEO	31	23	38	33	43	43
SEO	63	36	77	49	82	63
Grade 7	48	20	55	22	73	36
Grade 6	26	14	31	13	35	25
SCS1	10	5	12	7	15	6
SCS 2 / 3	5	1	6	2	6	2
Total	215	125	245	153	278	217

Analysis of employee by year by gender

Year	19/20	20/21	21/22
Male	215	245	278
Female	125	153	217
Total	340	398	495

UKEF’s gender pay gap

UKEF uses Civil Service grades ranging from Administrative Assistant (administrative level grade) to Senior Civil Servant (executive level grade). Grades vary according to the level of responsibility that staff have. Each grade has a set pay range with pay gaps in between grades.

In April 2022, the national median GPG for all employees as reported by ONS was 14.9%, this compared to UKEF’s median gender pay gap of 18.30%.

All recruitment and promotions are undertaken on the basis of Fair and Open competition in line with the Civil Service recruitment principles, furthermore, all applications are anonymised at the initial sift stage. To ensure a robust process, where possible the interview panels for recruitment and promotion consist of a balanced gender split.

In 2021/22 47.3% of promotions within UK Export Finance were female, this compared to 37% in 2020/21.

• Mean pay gap (ordinary pay): 14.20%
• Median pay gap (ordinary pay): 18.3%

Ordinary pay: trend over the last 6 years

	16/17	17/18	18/19	19/20	20/21	21/22
Mean pay	15.97%	15.25%	12.23%	13.90%	13.00%	14.20%
Median pay	16.26%	12.22%	11.97%	13.50%	15.60%	18.30%

The 2022 mean GPG data has highlighted that for delegated grades (AO to Grade 6) there has been a narrowing of any bias between the grades. At AO level pay has been equalised with the introduction of a spot rate.

Mean and median pay for 2022

Grade	Male	%	Female	%	Total	Mean (M)	Mean (F)	Median (M)	Median (F)	Mean	Median
AA	1	100%	0	0%	1	£12.71	£12.71	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
AO	1	50%	1	50%	2	£13.70	£13.70	£13.70	£13.70	0%	0%
EO	22	35%	41	65%	63	£15.67	£15.68	£15.44	£15.44	0%	0%
HEO	43	50%	43	50%	86	£18.62	£18.74	£17.83	£18.28	-0.65%	-2.50%
SEO	82	57%	63	43%	145	£24.62	£23.88	£24.07	£23.46	3.01%	2.51%
G7	73	67%	36	33%	109	£32.16	£31.75	£31.97	£31.81	1.26%	0.52%
G6	35	58%	25	42%	60	£41.33	£40.23	£40.82	£39.92	2.66%	2.20%
SCS1	15	71%	6	29%	21	£52.26	£50.08	£52.03	£52.13	4.16%	-0.19%
SCS2	5	71%	2	29%	7	£79.57	£70.33	£76.43	£70.33	11.61%	7.98%
SCS3	1	100%	0	0%	1	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Total	278	56%	217	44%	495

As a government department UKEF must operate within the parameters detailed in the annual Civil Service Pay Remit Guidance, whilst UKEF will adopt these proposals, where possible it is UKEF’s ambition to try and close the GPG further across all of its grades. In August 2022 UKEF created a spot rate for EO grades within the department thus eliminating the GPG at this level.

Bonus pay

UKEF’s performance awards were paid as a set value depending on grade and performance level.

• Mean pay gap (bonus pay): 27.7%
• Median pay gap (bonus pay): 19.70%

Unfortunately, compared to 20/21 UKEF’s bonus pay for females significantly worsened in 21/22.

Bonus pay: trend over the last 6 years

	16/17	17/18	18/19	19/20	20/21	21/22
Mean pay	22.36%	20.57%	24.68%	23.70%	13.10%	27.70%
Median pay	7.80%	25.09%	31.06%	8.70%	9.00%	19.70%

Percentage of men and women paid a bonus

• Male: 75%
• Female: 65%

Analysis by grade

Bonus by grade and gender

Grade	Male			Female
	No bonus	Bonus	Total employees	% rec’d bonus		No bonus	Bonus	Total employees	% rec’d bonus
AA / AO	0	2	2	100%		1	0	1	0%
EO	8	14	22	64%		24	17	41	41%
HEO	15	28	43	65%		18	25	43	58%
SEO	26	56	82	68%		17	46	63	73%
Grade 7	16	57	73	78%		11	25	36	69%
Grade 6	3	32	35	91%		5	20	25	80%
SCS1*	1	14	15	93%		0	6	6	100%
SCS 2 /3	0	6	6	100%		0	2	2	100%
Total	69	209	278	75%		76	141	217	65%

*Some of the SCS1 cohort were on promotion to SCS1, therefore pay awards would have been across two grade levels. Also one individual was not eligible for an award due to their length of service.

UKEF had 22 new employees join the department in February and March 2021 therefore, in line with the rules relating to performance awards, whilst they were employed as of 31st March 2022, they would have not been eligible for any bonus awards.

In addition to annual performance awards; for non-SCS staff UKEF also recognises outstanding employee contributions and small awards are made throughout the year.

With regards to UKEF’s performance awards (bonuses); payments are deferred, therefore, for the purposes of the 2022 GPG report, performance awards paid in August 2021 relate to employee’s performance in 20/21. Performance awards are pro-rated if an employee has not completed 12 months service or if they work part-time.

Of the 361 employees (this excludes SCS) who were eligible for annual performance awards (as of 31st March 2021) which were paid in August 2021 and fall within the remit of the 2022 GPG report, 100% of female employees received an award compared to 97.74% of male employees.

Annual performance awards for SCS are also paid in arrears, for the 20/21 performance year, awards to SCS were made in June 21 and in-year awards were made in November 2021. 95.23% of male SCS received a performance award, whereas 100% of females received an award.

Bonus: trend over the last 6 years

	16/17	17/18	18/19	19/20	20/21	21/22
% Paid a bonus (M/F)	46% / 51%	47% / 41%	55% / 58%	62% / 65%	75% / 74%	75.2% / 65.5%

Pay by quartiles

Pay by quartile: trend over the last 6 years

Proportion of women by salary quartile

Pay by quartiles (M/F)	16/17	17/18	18/19	19/20	20/21	21/22
Lower quartile	53%	46%	48%	46%	46.0%	57.30%
Lower middle quartile	28%	42%	40%	39%	48.5%	50.00%
Upper middle quartile	36%	34%	35%	32%	28.0%	33.10%
Upper quartile	27%	30%	33%	31%	31.3%	35.00%

When the workforce is segmented into quartiles based on pay, and those quartiles are compared on gender grounds, the data shows the for all quarters there has been an improvement in female representation when compared to 20/21.

	Lower quartile	Lower middle quartile	Upper middle quartile	Upper quartile
Male	43%	50%	67%	65%
Female	57%	50%	33%	35%

Work on closing the gender pay gap

We are resolute in our ambition to create a diverse and representative workplace – one that will attract and retain talented people from all backgrounds, and give everyone, including those already working for us, the opportunity to achieve their potential.

In 2017 we started our journey by signing the Women in Finance Charter, publicly affirming UKEF’s commitment to improve gender diversity. We aligned the department’s goals with the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy which set out new programmes and initiatives to realise the Civil Service wider ambition to become the UK’s most inclusive employer.

We set ourselves a clear target to increase female representation at SCS grades in the Department to 30% by 2020. In 20/21 the percentage of female staff within the SCS cohort peaked at 33%, however, this figure decreased to 28% in 21/22. The department has reaffirmed its Women in Finance target with the aim of having 40% of the SCS cohort as female by 2025. At the time of writing this report, following a number of permanent and temporary promotions, the percentage of females within the SCS cohort stands at 34%.

It is particularly disappointing that the mean/median GPG has widened for 2022, however, UKEF is committed to improving this figure. UKEF is pro-actively working with the Chief Executive Officer and the Gender Network to implement the planned initiatives and we have set ourselves a target of reducing the 20/21 mean GPG by 2% by 2024.

Ongoing talent management and support for female staff progression, through programmes such as Crossing Thresholds and sponsoring attendance at the Civil Service Women into Leadership conference remains a key objective within UKEF. In 21/22 - 13 of the 36 participants (36%) who attended the “Stepping into Leadership” programme were women and 21 people attend the Women in Leadership conference.

Each year UKEF develops a Diversity & Inclusion Plan, which sets out its key areas of focus for the upcoming year, aligning to overall targets set out in the People Strategy. With one year left of the current People Strategy, there will be several actions included within the 2023/24 Diversity & Inclusion Plan to meet the targets which have not yet been met, including the reduction of the Gender Pay Gap and to increase the proportion of females in the SCS cohort (these two targets are undoubtedly linked).

More needs to be done to close our gender pay gap and to ensure UKEF’s senior leaders are accountable. To that end, there is commitment as part of the annual performance objectives to ensure mandatory D&I objectives are in place for all of the SCS cohort.

In addition to the above, the Department has adopted further initiatives to reduce the gender pay gap, which include:

• Highlighting diversity and inclusion as a key strand of our People Strategy, under “Value All” we have committed to improving the diversity of our workforce and ensuring that all staff are given the opportunity to flourish in a work environment where they feel supported, valued and included. There are specific targets related to the gender diversity of the workforce.
• Attracting more women into the Civil Service by continuing to refine our recruitment processes. We currently anonymise the application process to reduce unconscious bias and at the SCS level, we have mandated that the “long list” must contain female candidates. At a non-SCS level we also use a broader range of careers websites to attract a larger number of female applicants.
• A commitment to undertake a survey of women at grade 7 and grade 6 level to be understand any potential barriers to career progression which may exist.
• Use insights from women who have been hired into senior posts within UKEF and understand what attracted them to the organisation so we can learn from this.
• To review language in recruitment material to ensure that the documentation is not inadvertently discriminatory towards any protected characteristics.
• Ensuring that there is broader diversity on interview panels (both gender and ethnicity) and that this is representative of UKEF as an organisation.

• To advertise and offer all jobs on a full time/part time/flexible working basis.

• To review how developmental opportunities are considered across teams within UKEF.
• Develop and implement a programme to promote reverse mentoring within the organisation.
• To review and utilise data to better understand areas to focus on, including analysis of performance rating by grade and gender (as well as other protected characteristics).
• We offer shared parental leave, as well as job share and part-time opportunities, and have guidance to help line managers ensure those returning from parental/adoption leave feel supported and welcomed.
• UKEF has an active staff Gender Network with over 100 members, which is supported by senior level sponsors within the Department. It has a goal to “help UKEF achieve gender equality”. There have been more than 25 Gender Network led events for staff at UKEF since 20/21. The network plays a strong role in championing gender diversity issues at UKEF and has been increasingly active in the 21/22 financial year with its members championing female success in the department.
• Senior female advocates in the department, including UKEF’s Chair, have also continue to feature prominently at staff events in their capacity as role models for others in the department.
• UKEF’s performance management system provides a robust process for rewarding staff. Before any awards are made there are a series of validation meetings to ensure consistency. In these meetings the distribution across grade, gender and ethnicity is closely monitored. Performance awards are paid in the next financial year, and in 2022, 98.61% of non-SCS staff received a year-end performance award.
• UKEF is committed to reviewing its current approach to remuneration, in-line with the parameters set by Cabinet Office and HM Treasury.

Staff included in the Gender Pay Gap data

1. Information is based upon individuals employed by UKEF on 31st March 2022.
2. Contractors (off payroll workers) are out of scope for this report.
3. Information prepared and published March 2023.
4. The GPG data is taken from Civil Service ACSES data, and this did not include Fast Streamers who are funded by the Cabinet Office.
5. We confirm that data reported by UKEF 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: Shane Lynch Director of Resources, UKEF.