Transparency data

IPO gender pay gap 2018

Published 19 December 2018

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1. Intellectual Property Office - Gender pay gap

The IPO’s pay approach supports the fair treatment and reward of all staff irrespective of gender. This report gives the IPO’s gender pay gap data, using the Government Equalities Office methodology, on the snapshot date of 31 March 2018. For bonuses, we used the period of 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2018, which was the 12 months preceding the snapshot date.

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 there may be a number of issues to deal with, and the individual calculations may help to identify what those issues are.

The gender pay gap is different to 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.

2. Gender make-up of the IPO

  • 43% of the IPO’s workforce are women
  • 23% of the IPO’s Senior Civil Service are women

3. IPO’s gender pay gap

  • mean pay gap: 22% in favour of men
  • median pay gap 30% in favour of men

The IPO pay system covers Civil Service grades ranging from administrative assistant to Senior Civil Servant (SCS). The grades vary according to the level of responsibility that staff have. Each grade has a set pay range with pay gaps in between grades. Staff are expected to move through the pay range for their grade. The longer period of time that someone has been in a grade, the more we would expect them to earn irrespective of their gender.

The comparison of mean and median pay in the IPO shows a gap in favour of men which is higher than the gap across the whole civil service which is 12.2% (mean), but not dissimilar to the gender gap in the field of Intellectual Property where females specialising in STEM are consistently under-represented. According to estimates based on The Office of National Statistic Labour Force Survey and compiled by the WISE Campaign (2017), women make up only 23% of the UK STEM workforce.

Given our workforce profile then, and the industry from which we recruit, a gender gap of some sorts is not unexpected.

In addition to this, within the IPO, a significant proportion of men are employed at higher grading levels in technical specialist roles. A high proportion of women are part-time and employed at lower grading levels in support roles (corporate and operational) which skews the average. 67% of our part-time workers are women.

Whilst the overall mean and median gender pay is significant at 22% and 30%, the breakdown for each grading level shows a more positive story with a far less pronounced gap across specific peer groups (grading and specialism):

3.1 Median gender pay gap by grade

Median gender pay gap (hourly rate) A1 A2 A3 B1 B2 B2 Exr B3 C1 C1 Exr C2 C2 Exr D1 SCS IPO
Women £8.75 £9.25 £10.32 £11.23 £13.19 £14.65 £15.21 £19.62 £19.82 £28.05 £28.55 £32.57 £37.60 £13.74  
Male £8.75 £9.25 £10.32 £11.19 £13.35 £14.65 £18.14 £21.58 £19.82 £29.90 £29.73 £32.62 £36.17 £19.75  
Median Gap 0% 0% 0% 0% 1% 0% 16% 9% 0% 6% 4% 0% -4% 30%  

3.2 Mean gender pay gap by grade

Mean gender pay gap (hourly rate) A1 A2 A3 B1 B2 B2 Exr B3 C1 C1 Exr C2 C2 Exr D1 SCS IPO
Women £9.16 £9.25 £10.21 £11.35 £13.42 £15.52 £16.42 £20.18 £19.98 £27.88 £27.90 £35.52 £36.69 £16.03  
Men £8.90 £10.15 £10.35 £11.47 £13.67 £15.31 £17.58 £21.54 £20.58 £29.93 £29.31 £32.83 £40.18 £20.68  
Median Gap -3% 9% 1% 1% 2% -1% 7% 6% 3% 7% 5% 1% 9% 22%  

Unsurprisingly, the biggest differentials can be seen in the B and C spans, which are dominated by our technical experts in STEM who attract a pay premium for their specific specialist skills. It is in these areas, as previously mentioned, that women are under-represented.

4. Pay by quartiles

Quartile Female% Male%
First (lower quartile) 61 39
Second quartile 52 48
Third quartile 34 66
Fourth (upper) quartile 25 75
Gender Pay Gap: Quartiles

Women make up 61% of the lower quartile and 25% of the upper quartile. The IPO has 43% women overall, the above table shows that the pay gap is due to there being more women in lower grades

5. Bonus pay

94% of females and 92% of males were paid a bonus in the 12 months ending 31 March 2018.

  • mean pay gap 1%
  • median pay gap -2%

The IPO operates a reward and recognition scheme that is based on performance and is irrespective of gender.

  • if we meet our Ministerial targets each year we may be eligible for an agency wide bonus
  • the top 25% of our performers each year may receive a performance related pay bonus
  • we have a Rewarding our Values scheme where our people can be nominated for an award (between £5 - 1000) for going above and beyond to display our values
  • our yearly Excellence awards offer financial rewards for people who go and above demonstrating our values

The gap has reduced considerably from the mean of 13% in the previous year and the median pay gap is now in favour of women.

6. Work on eradicating the gender pay gap

We recognise that the significantly higher proportion of men within our more highly paid technical specialist cadre, results in a material gender pay gap based on the required reporting methodology. We also recognise that the greater proportion of men in our highest grades is also reflected in the gender pay gap analysis. And, as an organisation, we are committed to fair pay irrespective of gender. We will continue to build on a number of actions and initiatives to reduce the gender pay gap, these include:

6.1 Gender - Fairplay Employer Benchmark (Chwarae Teg)

The IPO’s priority of improving the representation of women throughout the organisation, and particularly at senior level, led to us engaging with Chwarae Teg (a gender equality charity) in January this year, when we participated in a bespoke survey (Fairplay Employer Benchmark) to identify barriers in recruiting, retaining and progressing women within our workforce.

6.2 Women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths)

There is an under representation of women in specialist STEM roles in the IPO. 42% of our people are in specialist STEM roles. Although women make up nearly half of our workforce, the majority of them are in non-specialist roles. Our patent examining roles attract higher salaries due to their specialism, however, only 21% of these are taken up by women.

Although this issue isn’t exclusive to the IPO, we need to address any perceived barriers that are preventing women from pursuing a career in STEM. We are actively seeking to recruit more women into our specialist roles with the support of our STEM ambassadors and our Women’s Network.

Challenging Perceptions - we have engaged Cambridge University, specifically Murray Edwards College to investigate potential barriers to women’s progress in the IPO workplace. Breaking barriers of women’s preconceived ideas about how far they can progress whilst juggling work/life balance, through family friendly policies and appointed mentors from the Women’s Network.

STEM ambassadors in our Patent and IT business areas, our Unions, and Quality and Diversity Committee are collaborating on our recruitment, progression and retention of women in STEM.

Further information can be found in our Diversity and Inclusion Annual Report 2017/18.

6.3 Returning to work

Support for women returning to work following maternity, through shared parental leave, job sharing, compressed hours, part-time, and term-time only opportunities.

6.4 Care arrangements

Encouraging men to take advantage of arrangements which enable them to fulfil their caring responsibilities, such as shared parental leave, adoption leave, foster carers leave, part-time working and compressed hours.

The carers’ charter and passport are two of the practical steps we are taking to help our carers by setting out our overall approach and then bringing together in one place the information and support which is available.

The IPO was ranked Top 10 Working Families’ Employer 2017. Employers from many sectors compete annually to gain a place on the list of Top Employers for Working Families and this was the first year The IPO submitted an entry.

6.5 Career progression

Ensuring that women have the opportunity and ability to progress in their careers within the organisation through talent management schemes, such as the Stepping into Leadership scheme and Positive Action Pathway.

6.6 Continuous improvement of our recruitment processes

The IPO has already anonymised the application process to reduce the potential for unconscious bias. We are now working towards ensuring that our interviewers have undergone some form of unconscious bias training.

6.7 Gender strategy at higher grades

Ensuring that gender equality and increasing the representation of women at higher levels in the organisation is part of our strategic diversity and inclusion aims.