Companies House gender pay gap report and data 2023

30th March 2024

Companies House is fully committed to ensuring the fair treatment and reward of all colleagues irrespective of gender, as well as any other protected characteristic including age, ethnicity, religion and/or belief, sexual orientation, and disability status.

The promotion of equality and inclusivity is at the heart of everything we do, and we're proud of the progress we continue to make in this area.

Our commitment to supporting women to flourish in the workplace is evidenced by:

more women than men holding the most senior positions within our organisation
a reinvigorated women's network
our equality, diversity and inclusion (ED&I) steering group (chaired by our diversity champion (exec level)) and bringing together colleagues from all our ED&I networks, representatives from across the directorates within Companies House and trade union colleagues, continuing to go from strength to strength
an increasing number of female candidates with 56% of female applicants being successfully appointed during the last year
2. Definition
The gender pay gap is an equality measure that shows the difference in average earnings between women and men. It does not show the difference in pay for comparable jobs.

It is different to equal pay which deals with the pay differences between men and women who carry out the same jobs, similar jobs, or work of equal value.

In line with public sector regulations, the data in this report is based on a snapshot date of 31 March 2023. For bonuses, the period used was 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023, which was the 12 months preceding the snapshot date.

3. Gender pay gap data
The gender pay gap for Companies House 2023 is:

Mean pay gap of
12.4%

Median pay gap of
18.3%

Mean bonus gap of
9.0%

Median bonus gap of
9.0%

Mean is the average in the data set, and median is the middle number in the data set.

The proportion of male employees receiving a bonus is 32.8% and the proportion of female employees receiving a bonus is 31.2%.

Our commitment to gender equality can be evidenced from the very top of the organisation. Four of our six most senior employees (senior civil servants) are women, including our chief executive. Together with other women employed in senior roles in Companies House, they provide visible role models as well as their continuing support which underpins many of the initiatives, we have in place aimed at reinforcing our commitment to reducing our gender pay gap.

The HEO and SEO grades having the highest concentration of male colleagues. This is where we have a higher percentage of IT colleagues whose skill sets attract higher wages because of market rates. As most colleagues in this area are men, this widens the gender pay gap for Companies House.

Companies House pay gap is driven by an uneven gender split in our AO and EO grades which represents the lower and lower middle of the pay quartiles.

We've analysed this in detail receiving feedback that many of our female colleagues were attracted by our family friendly policies, which enables them to achieve a better work life balance. We also received feedback that female colleagues were aware of the help and support we provide in getting colleagues ready for promotion.

However, during the year, 144 colleagues left Companies House. 81 of these were female with the remaining 63 male. Of our female leavers, 50 were from roles within our lowest two quartiles meaning 31 of those who left were from roles paid in our upper two quartiles. Of our male leavers 23 were from roles within our lowest two quartiles and the remaining 40 roles were paid in the upper two quartiles.

As part of the support provided to internal colleagues, in January 2023, we ran some recruitment-based sessions aimed predominantly at our lower graded colleagues in our Customer Delivery Directorate (CDD).

The sessions were a collaboration between the recruitment team and CDD managers and proceeded a large recruitment campaign. Our aim was to build confidence and preparedness, and demystify the recruitment process, providing information to help colleagues feel comfortable in submitting an application. The campaign also offered the chance to receive some focused coaching for those aiming to take the next step in their career. These workshops were very well attended, particularly by female colleagues, and received positive feedback.

Since April 2023 there have been 136 internal promotions, 74 of which saw colleagues promoted into the Executive Officer (EO) grade. Female colleagues accounted for 56 of these promotions. This is a fantastic example of the benefit of the work and encouragement we have invested in this group and demonstrates the impact of one of our planned interventions.

Female colleagues also accounted for 57% of all promotions gained internally to the Higher Executive Officer (HEO) grade which further emphasises our success in encouraging and supporting female colleagues to build careers.

Read the full report HERE