Gender pay
Towards a more inclusive workplace
We serve many millions of students, teachers and researchers around the world. We do so with a clear mission: ‘to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence’.
We can best fulfil that mission when each of our 7,000 colleagues can give of their best. That means nurturing an inclusive working culture, where everyone feels supported and empowered to fulfil their potential. We want to foster a working culture characterised by fairness, transparency and equity. One where gender does not influence career progression or compensation. Across our organisation, we are taking actions to enable this. In some areas, as this report shows, we’ve made strong progress. In others, our values mean we have to go further – and at pace. We are determined to do so.
Gender Pay Gap Report 2023
In the UK, our median pay gap for 2022–23 was 8.51 percent. So, as of 31 March 2023, the median hourly rate for men was 8.51 percent higher than for women. This is lower than the UK national average of 14.3 percent, meaning we are performing significantly better than the average for all employees in the UK. However, in 2022 our UK gender pay gap was 8.26 percent, meaning we have not yet seen the kind of improvements we are determined to achieve.
It’s critical that we better understand why. In the UK, we know that we have more men in the upper pay quartile than women, including among new recruits. We can learn from parts of our organisation where the pay gap has successfully narrowed. For example, in UK Education, the pay gap was reduced by three percent, while the Assessment Research Division (ARD) almost entirely eliminated it. We can also learn from best practice at other organisations and businesses.
Global reporting and action
While not required to do so by law, we choose to report on our gender pay gap in other countries where we have a major presence, including in India, the Philippines and the United States. In India, where, like most other markets, men tend to earn more than women, we have made significant progress. The median hourly pay for our female colleagues in India is 15.32 percent higher than for male colleagues.
In the Philippines, the median pay gap was 20.24 percent in favour of men. Here, our team is working to make change, having launched campaigns to recruit, retain and develop more women in technology. In the United States, our pay gap – while better than the national average of 17 percent – stands at 13.82 percent – an increase of five percent on the previous year. As we work to close the gender pay gap around the world, we will learn from insights and experiences in different markets.
View the 2023 gender pay report
Please note that for reporting purposes, ‘male/men’ and ‘female/women’ reflects the UK tax office (HMRC) identification of our people. Our gender pay gap data is reported formally within the University of Cambridge gender pay gap report.
Our global Gender Pay Gap Action Plan
In 2023, following the publication of our first gender pay gap report as an integrated organisation, we drew up a global Action Plan for closing the gap, with four key areas of focus. The Plan is starting to deliver and remains at the core of our effort to address the gender pay gap.
Thanks to the energy and commitment of colleagues around the world, we are closing the gender pay gap in many areas of our organisation, through targeted interventions as part of our Global Gender Pay Gap Action Plan. This includes measures such as diversifying recruitment, promoting flexible working options, levelling roles and advertising them with pay ranges to increase transparency, and expanding our gender pay gap reporting in the locations where we have the numbers of employees to make such reporting meaningful.
The Gender Pay Gap Action Plan is aligned to our group-wide People and Culture programmes and our global Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (EDIB) Strategy, that is enabling great awareness of EDIB and empowering dialogue through our EDIB Academy training courses, staff networks, and the development of our data intelligence to identify barriers and appropriately address these. Leveraging these wider initiatives also contributes to reducing the gender pay gap. Our focus in the year ahead will be to embed this Action Plan across every part of our organisation.
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Previous reports
Cambridge University Press & Assessment
Cambridge University Press & Assessment was formed on 1 August 2021, bringing together two organisations: Cambridge University Press and Cambridge Assessment.
Cambridge Assessment
Cambridge University Press
