The Civil Service has reported a 7.8% mean gender pay gap for 2021, a decrease from 9.3% the previous year.
The data, sourced from the Annual Civil Service Employment Survey, highlighted that the median earnings gender pay gap narrowed from 10.5% in 2020 to 8.1% in 2021.
Its median and mean bonus gender pay gaps for 2021 stood at 40.5% and 29.3%, respectively, increasing from 17.4% and 24.6% in 2020. A higher proportion of women (70.8%) received a bonus compared with men (69.8%), widening from 64.2% and 59.2% in 2020.
The Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate reported the largest gender pay gap, with a 27.6% difference in average salary between men and women, while the Food Standards Agency has the lowest, with the average salary for women sitting at £3,410 more than men’s.
At the most senior level of the Civil Service, men earned an average salary of £92,520 in 2021, while women earned £88,270. Women were found to be under-represented in the highest pay quartile, at 46.5% compared to 53.5%, and overrepresented in the lowest pay quartile, at 59.8% compared to 40.2%.
More than half (54.2%) of employees at the Civil Service were women, up from 53.8% in 2020.
Overall, 14.3% of staff were from an ethnic minority background, an increase from 13.2% in 2020, and 13.6% declared that they have a disability, up from 12.8% in 2020.
A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “[These] statistics show a welcome increase in diversity amongst civil servants and a narrowing in the median and mean gender pay gap. We recognise that there’s more to do and we have recently introduced blind recruitment applications, advertising all jobs as flexible and piloting a senior sponsorship team for under-represented groups including women.”