Trade union Unison has reported a 5.9% mean gender pay gap for 2024, down by 1.2% since 2023.
Meanwhile, its median gender pay gap was 8.6%, down by 1.1% since 2023. Since 2017, the union’s mean gender pay gap has fallen 4.5% and its median by more than 7%.
Unison’s female employees earn 91.4p for every £1 that men earn when comparing median hourly pay. Their median hourly pay is 8.6% lower than men’s. The median hourly rate of women’s pay is £27.28 compared to men’s, which is £29.85.
Its upper pay quartile comprises 48% male and 52% female staff, whereas its lower pay quartile is 29% male and 71% female.
While Unison does not pay bonuses to staff, it occasionally makes honoraria payments to those who have given extensive commitment to a particular project, usually outside of social hours.
Women’s mean honoraria payments were 7.2% lower than men’s, while women’s median honoraria payments were 14% lower. This is a drop from 2023, when mean and median payments for women were 57.4% lower than men’s.
A total of 0.24% of men and 0.74% of women received a payment in the 12 months prior to April 2024, but none did in the snapshot period used for the organisation’s gender pay gap hourly rate calculations.
Christina McAnea, general secretary at Unison, said: “We have been undertaking a review of our pay and grading scheme and salary structure. This has included a pay benchmarking exercise, to understand how our pay and reward compares to other organisations and industries. We found that we scored above the benchmark in terms of staff feeling pay was reasonable compared to similar jobs in other organisations.
“Although the gender pay gap for honorarium payments has fallen significantly, we are still committed to reviewing the terms and criteria under which they are awarded to staff to ensure fairness across all our pay structures. We are also looking at what other policies we might need to implement in order to assist women at work.”
