Gender Pay Gap

From 4 April 2018, all companies employing over 250 employees or more are required to publish information on the Gender Pay Gap figures on an annual basis.

A Gender Pay Gap shows the difference in the average pay between all men and women in an organisation.

It is not the same as 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.

What measures are used?

There are six calculations required under the Regulations and these are as follows:

• The mean Gender Pay Gap
• The median Gender Pay Gap
• The mean bonus Gender Pay Gap
• The median bonus Gender Pay Gap
• The proportion of males and females receiving a bonus payment
• The proportion of males and females in each quartile band

What is Southern Housing Group’s Gender Pay Gap?

As at April 2017, the mean Gender Pay Gap figure for Southern Housing Group was 18.1%, and the median Gender Pay Gap was 15.4%. 

The 18.1% difference reflects of how women and men are spread across the organisation. It does not indicate that men and women doing the same work are paid differently – it reflects how a bigger proportion of women are in lower paid roles.

The pay data for the Group is split into quartiles. This means that all the salaries of both men and women are sorted by size and divided into four equal quarters. The percentage of men and women in each quarter is then published and for Southern Housing Group, the results are as follows:



The gender balance of our organisation gives some indication as to the reasons for the Gender Pay Gap.

As at April 2017, the gender make up of Southern Housing Group comprised 38% male and 62% female so our organisation has significantly more women working for us than men.

A high number of employees in the lower quartile and lower middle quartile sections work within care and support and a majority of these employees are female. Although Southern Housing Group pays the Living Wage Foundation rates for care and support roles, salary levels tend to be lower because of external market factors affecting what we can pay.

And what about bonuses?

Southern Housing Group does not pay a bonus however a Group-wide performance award was paid in 2016/17. This figure has been used to show comparators with benchmarks. The median bonus pay gap is much higher at 29.3% which is almost entirely explained by female employees being more likely to work part-time, which pro-ratas the amount. As at April 2017, only 63 male employees were part-time whereas 223 female employees worked part-time.

If each employee was paid their maximum grade bonus (without pro-rating to their contractual hours), the median Gender Pay Gap would be 0%, and the mean Gender Pay Gap would be 7.89%.

What is Southern Housing Group doing to address these issues?

An annual report on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion is presented to the Group’s Board each summer.

The Board has also approved an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion strategy which is underpinned by an action plan detailing the steps being taken within the Group to eliminate discrimination; advance equality of opportunity; and to foster good working relationships between all groups of people at work.

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