Addressing the
Gender Pay Gap

The following information aligns with the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 (Section 147) as they relate to York St John University by identifying any gender gaps in pay and bonuses. 

Gender Pay Gap data for 2022

At York St John University we are committed to equality of employment and opportunity. Our grading system measures all roles against the same criteria to ensure fairness and consistency so that women and men are paid equally for the same work.  It is the distribution of gender across different grades that is the primary contributing factor towards our mean pay gap of 11.4% and median pay gap of 16.3%. 

Our data for academic staff shows that the overall pay gap across all academic colleagues is only 1.26%. 

Our 2026 Strategy aims to see the median gender pay gap reduced to below 5% by 2026 as a staging target towards elimination.

As part of our commitment to meeting this target, the University has adopted the Athena Swan Charter, a framework that supports and transforms gender equality within higher education (HE) and research. On International Women’s Day 2022, we were awarded an Athena Swan bronze award for our ongoing commitment to transform gender equality in higher education. We are now implementing an action plan to embed gender equality actions into our policies, practices, and culture.  This includes overt actions such as supporting women leadership programmes, as well as addressing hidden inequalities.

Why do we have a Gender Pay Gap? 

York St John University has more women employed at grade 9 and an equal number of men and women at grade 8. However, we have slightly more male professors and have a higher number of women employed in lower grades, where part time work is more common and at the lower end of the pay structure. This, plus the other factors detailed below, account for the differences identified in our gender pay gap data. 

In-house teams  

We are proud to have in-house cleaning and catering teams at York St John, which offer colleagues improved terms and conditions. These teams employ a higher number of women in lower paid roles.  

Student Ambassadors  

We offer paid employment to our students who work as student ambassadors. Most of our student ambassadors are female which disproportionately increases the number of women on a lower rate of pay.   

Casual Academics  

In some Schools and at our London campus, we have greater numbers of male casual academics engaged on the enhanced multiplied rate which includes prep and marking time. This increases the average hourly rate of male colleagues on higher pay.  

Salary sacrifice  

We have a higher number of female colleagues accessing salary sacrifice schemes such as Childcare vouchers, which reduce the average hourly rate of our female staff.  

Senior women on leave  

When the data for the 2022 Gender Pay Gap was calculated, several senior women in our upper pay quartile were not included due to maternity leave and other absences. 

What we are doing to eliminate our Gender Pay Gap 

Since the 2022 Gender Pay Gap reporting period, we have become an accredited Real Living Wage Employer, which increases the average hourly rate of all colleagues on lower grades. This includes our Student Ambassadors, who are all paid above the national minimum wage.  

We have updated our promotions criteria, and following an internal promotion process, 53.3% of our recently recruited Associate Professors were female academics. This provides a positive career pipeline for female professorships at the University.  

We have appointed two new female Heads of School, and three out of our five Heads of School are women. We also have a female Director of our London Campus. 

We are working towards more equal rates of pay for male and female part-time hourly paid colleagues by ensuring that market forces do not result in inflated starting salaries for male colleagues. 

We will run recruitment campaigns to attract more male applicants to catering, cleaning and administration and roles. 

We are making further improvements to our grading structure to increase pay for grade 3 roles where women hold the majority of administrative positions. 

We continue to promote part-time and flexible working for senior roles and ensure measures are in place to support this. 

We will work with our women’s staff network to address barriers to part-time working, including a more consistent approach to allocation of workload. 

We are planning the development of career pathways across Professional and Student Services to support progression and create a pipeline for senior roles (People and Culture strategy 2023). 

Our bonus pay gap is in favour of women and 97% of bonuses at York St John University relate to long service awards.   

As one of very few universities with a female Chancellor, Vice Chancellor and Chair of Governors, we are in a strong position to advocate for authentic and meaningful change at all levels. Our ongoing work to address the gender pay gap is a fundamental part of our wider commitment to equality and inclusion.