Virgin Money sees mean gender pay gap narrow to 32.5%

Virgin Money has a mean gender pay gap of 32.5% for hourly fixed pay at April 2017, compared to 36% in April 2016.

The organisation has reported snapshot data for 5 April 2017 in compliance with the government’s gender pay gap reporting regulations. The data has been published on the government’s gender pay gap viewing service alongside supporting information.

The median gender pay gap for hourly fixed pay is 38.4% at April 2017. Virgin Money had a 39% median gender pay gap in April 2016, as detailed in its 2016 annual report.

The mean gender pay gap for bonus pay is 45.3% in the year up to 5 April 2017, and the median gender pay gap for bonuses is 40.7%. For the 2016 performance year, 88.7% of the organisation’s female employees received bonus pay, compared to 90.1% of male employees.

Just over one-third (35%) of employees in the highest pay quartile at Virgin Money are women, compared to 48% in the second quartile, 64% in the third quartile and 73% in the lowest pay quartile. This represents a gender pay gap of 9.7%, 3.8%, 2.8%, and -0.7% across the quartiles, respectively.

Virgin Money has set a target to achieve a 50:50 gender balance across the business by 2020, within a 10% tolerance.

The gender pay gap reporting regulations require organisations with 250 or more employees to publish the difference between both the mean and median hourly rate of pay for male and female full-time employees; the difference between both the mean bonus pay and median bonus pay for male and female employees; the proportions of male and female employees who were awarded bonus pay; and the proportions of male and female full-time employees in the lower, lower middle, upper middle and upper quartile pay bands.

In April 2017, the Government Equalities Office launched the online gender pay gap viewing service to allow the public to see the data that employers have published so far to fulfil their gender pay gap reporting obligations.

A spokesperson at Virgin Money said: “We are proud to be the first FTSE [organisation] to publish its 2017 gender pay gap figures under the new legislation. We have made progress over the last year, with our mean gender pay gap reducing from 36% to 32.5%. This gap is not acceptable and we are committed to reducing it.

“We know that as we move towards a more balanced workforce at every level the gender pay gap will reduce substantially. We are heading in the right direction, narrowing the gap and building trust through visibility at the same time.”