Transparency data

2025 gender pay gap report

Published 16 December 2025

Introduction

In 2017, the government introduced world-leading legislation that made it statutory for organisations with 250 or more employees to report annually on their gender pay gap.

Government departments are also covered by the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017, which came into force on 31 March 2017. These regulations underpin the Public Sector Equality Duty and require relevant organisations to publish their gender pay gap by 30 March annually.

This includes the:

• mean and median gender pay gaps
• mean and median gender bonus gaps
• proportion of men and women who received bonuses
• proportions of male and female employees in each pay quartile

This report fulfils the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and its executive agencies’ reporting requirements, analyses the figures in more detail and sets out what the department and its agencies are doing to reduce the gender pay gap. The reporting period is 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025.

This report covers:

• DHSC (core department)
• UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) (executive agency)
• Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) (executive agency) 

The individual organisations hold the responsibility of analysing their reward mechanisms (such as pay and bonuses) to assure themselves that there is no gender bias.

DHSC and its executive agencies are committed to the fair treatment and reward of all staff, addressing inequality and ensuring equality of opportunity for all staff. DHSC and its executive agencies’ pay approach is based on the principles of consistency, fairness and transparency, supporting the fair treatment and reward of all staff irrespective of gender.

Building a diverse and inclusive workforce that reflects the people we serve is one of the Civil Service’s top workforce priorities. The Civil Service should create opportunities for all in a truly meritocratic way and reward all civil servants fairly, regardless of gender, ethnicity or any other personal characteristic.

Gender pay gap report

The gender pay gap shows the difference in the average pay between all men and women in a workforce. If a workforce has a particularly high gender pay gap, this can indicate that there may be a number of issues to deal with.

The gender pay gap is different from equal pay. Equal pay deals with the pay differences between men and women who carry out the same jobs, similar jobs or work of equal value. It is unlawful to pay people unequally because they are a man or a woman.

For this report, hourly pay is calculated using base pay, allowances and bonuses paid in the relevant pay period as defined in the regulations.

The 2025 gender pay gap figures are set out below. In all tables, ‘Health and social care’ refers to the overall figures from DHSC, UKHSA and MHRA.

Pay and bonus gaps

Table 1: pay and bonus gaps by reporting organisation

Reporting organisation	Mean pay gap	Median pay gap	Mean bonus gap	Median bonus gap
DHSC	3.6%	1.8%	6.3%	5.6%
MHRA	8.8%	15.3%	7.3%	0.0%
UKHSA	9.4%	6.5%	24.5%	0.0%
Health and social care	7.5%	13.5%	14.1%	14.3%

Table 2: percentage of men and women receiving a bonus by reporting organisation

Reporting organisation	Men	Women
DHSC	73.9%	77.3%
MHRA	45.2%	51.4%
UKHSA	35.5%	45.7%
Health and social care	49.5%	57.1%

Table 3: percentage of women through each pay quartile by reporting organisation

Reporting organisation	Lower	Lower middle	Upper middle	Upper
DHSC	66.0%	67.5%	64.7%	61.7%
MHRA	65.8%	63.3%	62.8%	54.3%
UKHSA	69.6%	67.9%	64.8%	56.0%
Health and social care	67.9%	66.8%	64.9%	57.8%

Workforce analysis

DHSC and UKHSA workforces include different sets of terms and conditions with different pay scales and arrangements. The majority (approximately 75%) of the workforce fall under the standard Civil Service pay arrangements and grading framework. The remaining workforce are on the NHS (Agenda for Change and Executive and Senior Manager) pay frameworks or on medical and dental terms and conditions.

While the entire workforce is included in the DHSC gender pay gap figure, the range of different pay arrangements results in a more complex relationship impacting on the gender pay gap figure.

The pay gap

DHSC and its executive agencies are structured using Civil Service grades ranging from administrative assistant (AA) to senior civil servant (SCS). Grades reflect levels of responsibility, and each has a set pay range. Staff are subject to an annual pay review and receive pay increases upon promotion.

The health and social care mean pay gap has narrowed by 0.3 percentage points to 7.5%. This represents a 6.7 percentage point reduction from 2017 (when reporting began). The median pay gap has seen a narrowing from 2024 by 0.4 percentage points to 13.5%.

There remains a gap in pay between men and women, though the mean pay gap is on a positive trajectory overall. The mean pay gap remains below the UK average of 12.8% in 2025. ^{[footnote 1]}

The difference in hourly pay is driven by several factors.

For example, the compounding effect of a specific proportion of men in the most highly paid SCS grades, and a higher proportion of women in the most junior grades. This is particularly the case for the executive agencies which has impacted overall departmental results.

Proportion of men and women in each pay quartile

In the lower quartile, 67.9% of employees are female, compared to 57.8% in the upper quartile. The non-uniform distribution of both male and females across the organisation is one of the factors driving the gender pay and bonus gaps. It has more of an impact on the bonus figure, as at the most senior levels there is only a bonus opportunity at SCS level and the value of the bonus increases with responsibility level.

The bonus gap

In DHSC and its executive agencies, end of year performance awards were paid as a set value depending on SCS grade and performance. DHSC and its executive agencies also pay in-year awards with the aim of recognising strong performance in a timely manner and spreading financial recognition to a wider population. However, in-year awards are not included in the bonus gender pay gap calculation.

The bonus pay gap is driven by the opportunity for higher bonuses at the most senior grades. The bonus gap sees large changes year on year resulting in significant fluctuations of the bonus gap due to individual personnel changes at the topmost level. The health and social care mean bonus gap saw an increase in 2025 to 14.1%. This represents a 5.4 percentage point increase from 2024, and an 18.8 percentage point reduction from 2017, when reporting began.

The mean bonus gap is driven by a specific proportion of men in the most senior grades where the bonus potential is highest, and over-representation of women in the junior grades.

The median bonus gap is 14.3%, and represents a 3.9 percentage point increase from 2017, when reporting began.

Targeted action to reduce the gender pay gap

Since the publication of the 2024 gender pay gap report, DHSC and its executive agencies have taken several steps to reduce the gender pay gap.

DHSC and its agencies are addressing the gender pay gap through a range of actions within workstreams, which are outlined below.

Recruitment

We are ensuring fairness and equality of recruitment, including:

• ‘name-blind’ external recruitment
• diverse recruitment panels
• use of systems data to understand outcomes for gender in our workforce

We are also exploring upskilling of colleagues in inclusive recruitment practices and application, and interview support workshops for internal candidates, in collaboration with staff networks.

Governance

We have introduced refreshed governance, so that the DHSC Leadership Group discusses equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) on a biannual basis, providing strategic oversight and accountability. This is alongside biannual discussions with the departmental people board on the specific EDI interventions for the departmental workforce.

Talent and career progression

There is a continued focus on talent, progression and career paths.

For example, a range of talent and development schemes aimed at nurturing potential and developing leadership capabilities to support staff growth and progression. 76% of those on our Future Leaders and Senior Leaders Scheme are female, so there is high representation on these leadership schemes with a focus on continuous learning. This creates a supportive environment, and equips employees with the skills needed for future roles.

There is also a performance management approach that focuses on career development and learning to support growth.

Policies promoting equality in the workplace

The Civil Service code and the DHSC Code of Business Conduct set out the essential standards of behaviour expected from civil servants. All employees are required to treat their colleagues with dignity and respect. Additionally, all departmental human resources (HR) People Policies and Procedures comply with the Equality Act 2010.

Policies focused on supporting wider equality within the workplace include:

• renewing DHSC’s Disability Confident Leader status in 2024, which runs for 3 years until March 2027
• the use of fair, consistent and inclusive working models supported by flexible working policies including hybrid working models, flexi-time and shared parental leave

Culture

We are also continuing to build an inclusive culture with initiatives.

For example, implementing our 5-year inclusion plan focusing on tackling disparities as a central part of everything we do.

We’re also building line manager capability with bespoke people policies training, focussing on core areas where line managers have identified gaps in applying complex HR policies and procedures and the support required in navigating them. This includes handling difficult conversations and dealing with incidents of bullying, harassment and discrimination.

Senior Civil Service leadership

The introduction of minimum standards across the senior Civil Service is designed to drive better outcomes and standards of senior leadership for the Civil Service. The minimum standard that senior leaders need to meet asks for them to take a data-driven, evidence-led and delivery-focused approach to diversity and inclusion. It also highlights the need to take personal responsibility for delivering diversity and inclusion strategies by embedding diversity and inclusion considerations in all decision making and delivery. They should set high expectations of leadership and people management for those with whom they work, and hold others accountable for making good decisions, even when this may prove challenging or unpopular.

Data

DHSC has made workforce data more accessible through the use of Power BI reports to senior management teams and staff networks. This allows up to date information on protected characteristics to be easily viewed and the resulting data to be fed into workforce planning conversations.

Capability

The department supports women from diverse professional backgrounds through investing in relevant development programmes. These include mentoring, coaching and leadership schemes designed to help them progress in a structured and encouraging environment. These are open to all grades and focus on targeted and personalised support where needed. This can include building confidence, enhancing personal impact and increasing self-awareness.

Declaration

We confirm that data reported by DHSC and its executive agencies is accurate, and has been calculated according to the requirements and methodology set out in the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017.

1. Office for National Statistics, Gender pay gap in the UK: 2025 ↩