UK TMT sector continues to take positive steps to close gender pay gap

Approximately 562 TMT employers have reported their gender pay gap for the year 2023-24. Analysis carried out by Pinsent Masons shows a positive change in the sector’s GPG figures, despite women still only making up 27% of employees in the top pay quartile. While this is an improvement on previous years, there is more that can be done to reduce the gap across the sector.

Gender pay gap reporting requirements

Businesses with more than 250 employees are required to publish their overall mean and median pay gaps on an annual basis. The requirement first came into force in 2017, with firms obliged to publish data on gross hourly pay gaps for men and women as well as their mean and median gender bonus gaps, with both sets of figures represented as a percentage.

Firms are also required to publish data on the male and female employee split within each ‘quartile’ of their pay distributions, ordered from lowest to highest. The proportion of men and women who received a bonus in the previous 12-month period should also be included in the report.

Businesses are encouraged to publish an explanatory narrative alongside the figures for context, but are not required to do so.

Gender pay gap figures from the UK TMT sector

The latest figures reflect reports from approximately 562 employers across the UK TMT sector.

Based on the companies who reported, women working for large TMT companies are paid approximately 15.28% less per hour than men, representing a small improvement from 15.6% in 2022-23. This is slightly less than other sectors such as financial services where women are paid, on average, over 20% less than men. On the whole, TMT companies have improved their median hourly gender pay gap by up to 3% since the reporting obligation was introduced in 2017.

In terms of bonus payments, there is an average difference of 14.68% in the median bonus payments to men and women. This is an improvement on the 2022-23 figure of 18.5%.

Women in the TMT sector make up only 27% of employees in the top pay quartile whereas, on average, 45.3% of employees in the lower pay quartile are female. These figures present a small, but nevertheless positive shift from figures published in previous years.

Employment law expert, Helen Corden of Pinsent Masons, commented: “There have been small, but positive, visible changes in the reporting from TMT employers.  Compared to last year, more companies in the TMT sector are reporting on their gender pay gap and most companies have improved their median gender pay gap since the reporting obligation was introduced”.

What are the underlying causes of the UK TMT sector gender pay gap?

It is said that the TMT sector typically attracts fewer women, which ultimately contributes to the overall gender pay gap. Women tend to occupy the lowest-paid jobs in the tech sector, and there is particularly low representation of women in senior leadership roles.

NTT Data reported that there is a concerning trend of dissatisfaction amongst female employees in the technology industry;  42% of women have considered leaving the industry to further their career in another sector.

How are UK TMT companies addressing the gender pay gap?

The most common actions taken across the TMT sector to close the gender pay gap include the establishment of internal networking groups, dedicated leadership programmes, flexible working patterns, mentoring, and setting diversity targets.

Companies are also adopting diversity initiatives which provide new opportunities for female candidates to find roles in the telecommunications sector.

Many companies have stated in their GPG reports that they are promoting the sector at school and university level, with the aim of encouraging more women to think of TMT as a career choice. For instance, Vodafone has developed workshops to attract female students, with Openreach Limited committing to ensuring that 20% of all trainee engineer recruits will be women and 20% of all hires will be women by 2025. Although this is lower than other companies in the TMT sector, engineering has traditionally been a male-dominated industry which needs further work to change. Openreach plans to do this by continuing to remove gender bias from their recruitment process, for example by using gender neutral language in job adverts. When first implemented, this attracted 300% more women to engineering roles.

Companies have reported seeing better gender balance in recruitment since the reporting obligation was introduced and are continuing to drive progression at the recruitment stage. Companies are also removing gendered language in job adverts in an attempt to bring more women into the sector. Corden said: “Virgin Media has introduced a gender-neutral job description to ensure inclusive language is used and a tool called ‘Match Me’ which encourages women to consider roles they might not have otherwise considered. In addition, it also sponsors a mentoring programme called ‘Step Up’ which mentors women in their second year of university who are interested in pursuing a career in the industry”.

Companies are also seeking to increase female representation at senior leadership levels by providing leadership or mentoring training programmes and ‘returners to work’ initiatives for employees who have experienced a career break but wish to return to work

Firms are also reviewing and changing their parental leave policies and embracing flexible working and family balanced policies. BT has implemented a number of measures to help close the gender pay gap, including a commitment to having 30% or more representation of women on all of their boards.