Transparency data

Ministry of Justice gender pay gap report: 2024

Published 17 December 2024

Applies to England and Wales

Executive Summary

This report has been prepared for the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) Group as part of the legal requirement to publish the gender pay gap on an annual basis.

At the end of March 2024:

• MoJ Group mean pay gap was 5.7% (decreased by 0.2 percentage points)
• MoJ Group median pay gap was 5% (decreased by 1.3 percentage points)
• MoJ Group mean bonus gap was 3.7% (decreased by 8 percentage points)
• MoJ Group median bonus gap was -10.9% (increased by 8.6 percentage points)

The MoJ Group is responsible for all aspects of the criminal and civil justice systems. It is the largest government department, with a total full-pay^{[footnote 1]} workforce of 94,380 people (31 March 2024). 57% (54,186) of full-pay staff were female and 43% (40,194) were male. Female staff made up 52% (157) of Senior Civil Servants (SCS) (male staff made up 48%). Female staff made up 55% (2,291) of the feeder grades below SCS (Grade 6 and 7).

Staff employed in His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) made up 72% (67,941) of the full-pay workforce. Being a prison officer is the most common role in the MoJ Group. In HMPPS 69.3% (13,517) of prison officers are male and 30.7% (5,981) are female.

In 2024, the mean gender pay gap was 5.7% and the median gender pay gap was 5%. Allowances for shift working in the prison service continue to be a crucial factor producing a gender pay gap for the MoJ Group.

The gender bonus gap is typically subject to greater year-on-year variation in award amounts and frequency. In 2023/24 the mean overall gender bonus gap was 3.7%, which is 8 percentage points lower than in 2022/23.

We remain committed to narrowing the gender pay and bonus gap, our monitoring and analysis continues to inform a future reward and people strategy that supports retention and attraction.

1. Introduction

The Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulation 2017^{[footnote 2]} came into force on 31 March 2017. Departments are required to publish their gender pay gap taken on the snapshot date of 31 March each year. Gender Pay Gap figures include:

• the mean and median gender pay gap based on hourly pay
• the percentage of male and female staff in each hourly pay quartile
• the mean and median gender bonus gaps
• the percentage of male and female staff receiving a bonus in the 12 months up to 31 March 2024 (reporting period is 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024)

The MoJ Group gender pay gap calculations include full-pay employees in post on 31 March 2024. Totals may not sum as expected due to rounding.

The official gender pay gap methodology only includes full-pay staff (but the gender bonus gap includes all staff in post who received a bonus regardless of full-pay status)^{[footnote 3]}. A full pay employee is defined as an employee who is paid their full basic pay – including paid leave or paid for piecework during the pay period in which their snapshot date falls. Part-time staff may be classed as full-pay.   

The following gender pay gap statistics have not included the additional non-consolidated one-off payments made to civil servants in 2023. The payments were not considered to fall within the scope of pay for the purpose of calculations and in any event were made outside the relevant pay period of March 2024 for the main pay gap statistics and are therefore excluded from those calculations. The payment has also been excluded from the bonus pay gap statistics as the payment was not by way of a bonus for these purposes and to treat it as such would serve to mask the true underlying bonus pay gap figures for 2023-2024.

Organisational context

The MoJ Group has several executive agencies, whose staff have been included in these figures as required by the legislation. These are His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS), the Legal Aid Agency (LAA), the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) and the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA).

Business Area	Female	Male	Total	Female Proportion	Male Proportion
MOJ HQ	4,365	3,135	7,500	58%	42%
HMCTS	10,892	4,726	15,618	70%	30%
HMPPS	36,977	30,964	67,941	54%	46%
LAA	782	457	1,239	63%	37%
CICA	169	143	312	54%	46%
OPG	1,001	769	1,770	57%	43%
Total	54,186	40,194	94,380	57%	43%

As at 31 March 2024, the overall MoJ Group had 94,380 full-pay staff in total, including SCS (compared to 90,169 staff in 2023 and 85,256 in 2022). As at 31 March 2024, 57% of all full-pay MoJ staff were female, compared to 58% in 2023 and 57% in 2022. Of all staff employed on the 31 of March 2024, 72% were employed by HMPPS.

Grade	Female	Male	Total	Female Proportion	Male Proportion
SCS	155	147	302	51%	49%
Grade 6/7	2,291	1,894	4,185	55%	45%
SEO/HEO	8,638	6,341	14,979	58%	42%
EO	6,094	5,713	11,807	52%	48%
AA/AO	20,450	20,691	41,141	50%	50%
Other[footnote 4]	16,558	5,408	21,941	75%	25%
Total	54,186	40,194	94,380	57%	43%

This table shows the distribution of female and male staff across each grade. The split in each grade in the department as a whole is fairly even, with most grades having an even split or slightly more female staff.

A single grade will often correspond to a number of very distinct roles across a diverse workforce and there is a significant female/male split among these roles. Administrative Officer is the most common grade in the department. It includes both administration staff in HMCTS, who are predominantly female, and prison officers in HMPPS, who are predominantly male. Prison officer roles require working shift patterns and attract allowances that compensate for this.

Our diversity and inclusion approach

The  Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy: 2022-2025 and Civil Service People Plan 2024-2027 published in February 2022 and January 2024 respectively, focus on enabling a more inclusive Civil Service which values and invests in its people as well as understanding and drawing from the communities it serves, contributing to the delivery of A Modern Civil Service. 

The MoJ People Strategy 2023-2026 and related MoJ Inclusion Approach is our strategic departmental framework.

2. Gender pay gap report

Both mean and median pay gaps are calculated as the percentage difference in female hourly pay compared to male hourly pay. The mean hourly pay gap is the percentage difference between the total of male hourly pay and female hourly pay. That is, we sum up the hourly pay for all male and female staff in the organisation separately and calculate the percentage difference to find the mean gender pay gap. While the median pay gap is the hourly pay of the middle-ranked female compared to the middle-ranked male across all grades. As per the guidance, we use hourly pay because it takes out the effect of different working patterns and different contracted hours on the pay gap.

The gender pay gap shows the difference in the average pay between all male and female staff in a workforce.

The gender pay gap is different to equal pay. Equal pay legislation deals with the pay differences between men and women who perform the same jobs, similar jobs or work of equal value (‘equal work’). Men and women in the same employment performing equal work must, by law, receive equal pay unless any difference in pay can be justified. Having a gender pay gap is not unlawful and does not necessarily mean there is an unlawful inequality in an organisation’s pay arrangements.

Hourly pay has been calculated in line with the government’s published guidance^{[footnote 5]} and broken down into four quartiles from highest to lowest. In descending order, these are called: upper, upper middle/third, lower middle/second and lower pay quartiles.

This report fulfils Ministry of Justice reporting requirements and sets out the actions we are taking. This information is published on GOV.UK and the Government Equalities Office (GEO) Gender pay gap service portal^{[footnote 6]}.

3. Analysis of pay gap

The mean and median gender pay gap as at 31 March each year.

Year	Mean Pay Gap	Median Pay Gap
2024	5.7%	5%
2023	5.9%	6.3%
2022	5.9%	11.4%
2021	5.9%	13.6%
2020	5.8%	15.6%
2019	5.8%	15.9%
2018	6.5%	15.3%
2017	6.8%	15.3%

In 2024, the overall mean pay gap (the difference between male and female staff average hourly pay) has decreased to 5.7%, following a consistent rate of 5.9% in 2023, 2022 and 2021.

Approximately 1 in 3 male staff (33.6% of all male staff) are employed in HMPPS as prison officers, a role that includes allowances for shift work. By contrast, approximately 1 in 9 (11.0% of all female staff) are employed in HMPPS as prison officers. Allowances for shift working in the Prison Service continue to be a key factor leading to a gender pay gap for the MoJ Group.

The median gender pay gap for 2024 is at 5% which has decreased from 6.3% in 2023 and from 11.4% in 2022. This means that in 2024 the median female earns 95p for every £1 the median male earns. This is an improvement from 94p in 2023 and 89p in 2022.  

This year, both median persons are now in the same role, which differs from last year, and is the main reason for the reduction in the median pay gap. The gap has reduced because both the median persons for male and female are now Band 3 prison officers. The median male has changed from a Band 4 Probation Officer in 2023 to a Band 3 Prison Officer in 2024, and the median female has remained the same as a Band 3 Prison Officer in 2024. The median female has remained on the same pay scale, whilst the median male has changed from a Band 4 Probation Officer to a Band 3 Prison Officer. This year, Band 3 Prison Officers received a 5% increase in pay, along with their usual annual progression through the pay scale. As such, the gap still exists between male and female median because the male median has been in the role for longer than the female, so are further along the pay band. 

The Civil Service average^{[footnote 7]} mean and median gender pay gaps in March 2024 were 7.4% and 8.5% respectively. The MoJ Group figures of 5.7% and 5% are both below these figures.

Hourly pay quartiles

Percentage of female and male staff in each pay quartile comparison by year.

Year	Upper Quartile	Third Quartile	Second Quartile	Lower Quartile
	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male
2024	56%	44%	45%	55%	60%	40%	69%	31%
2023	55%	45%	46%	54%	61%	39%	69%	31%
2022	55%	45%	48%	52%	59%	41%	66%	34%
2021	52%	48%	46%	54%	56%	44%	66%	34%
2020	52%	48%	43%	57%	56%	44%	66%	34%
2019	51%	49%	42%	58%	57%	43%	63%	37%
2018	51%	49%	40%	60%	59%	41%	62%	38%
2017	51%	49%	38%	62%	59%	41%	65%	35%

The hourly pay quartiles data show the proportion of female and male staff in each pay quartile when we rank staff in order of hourly pay rate. On 31 March 2024 female staff occupied 56% of the highest hourly pay and 69% of the lowest hourly pay. Since pay gap reporting began, female staff occupying the highest paid jobs has increased from 51% to 56%. Female staff occupying the third quartile (second highest hourly pay) has increased from 38% to 45% since reporting began (though a slight drop from its peak of 48% in 2022).

This year, the proportion of female staff in the lowest quartile has remained unchanged from last year.  

4. Analysis of the bonus gap

The mean/median bonus gap is the difference between the mean/median bonus paid to male and female staff, who have received bonuses. The bonus pay gap is more volatile than the gender pay gap because there is year-on-year variation in award amounts and frequency.

For bonus pay we captured data for the 12-month period between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024 from our in-year reward scheme.

Bonus Pay

Year	Mean Bonus Gap	Median Bonus Gap
2023/24	3.7%	-10.9%
2022/23	11.7%	-19.5%
2021/22	11.6%	0.0%
2020/21	31.7%	27.4%
2019/20	10.7%	0.0%
2018/19	15.9%	-6.7%
2017/18	8.0%	-13.3%
2016/17	18.3%	16.7%

The MoJ Group mean gender bonus gap has decreased this year from 11.7% to 3.7% (8 percentage points), this was lower than the figure for the Civil Service as a whole, which was 25.7%. The MoJ median gender bonus gap of -10.9% is also lower than the overall Civil Service figure of 22.4%^{[footnote 8]}.

Negative values (-%) indicate that the middle-ranked female received a higher bonus payment than the middle-ranked male staff member, the median bonus gap has narrowed compared to last year increasing from –19.5% to -10.9% (8.6 percentage points).  

The distribution of bonus amounts received by male and female staff are a lot closer than the median bonus gap figure implies. A median bonus amount of £110 for men means the middle-ranked male received £110. A median bonus amount of £122 for women means the middle-ranked female received £122. However, 49% of males received £100 or less, while 47% of female staff received £100 or less. This implies the distributions of bonuses are closer than the median bonus gap figure suggests and a small variation in the distribution could produce no median bonus gap.

Year	Mean Award	Median Award
	Female	Male	Female	Male
2023/24	£273	£283	£122	£110
2022/23	£263	£298	£120	£100
2021/22	£404	£458	£200	£200

A performance and reward system has been rolling out across the MoJ Group for a number of years. This focuses on providing reward and recognition throughout the year, moving away from end of year bonus payments. Overall, for the MoJ Group in 2023/24, 54.4% of female staff and 42.8% of male staff received a bonus. We have seen the percentage of people receiving a bonus increase over time and maintained at a similar, although a slightly lower level this year.

Year	% receiving bonus
	Female	Male
2023/24	54.4%	42.8%
2022/23	56.9%	45.9%
2021/22	36.0%	30.3%

We will continue to apply the in-year reward scheme, monitoring reward and recognition outcomes.  

5. Action to reduce the gender pay gap

The MoJ will continue to take action to narrow our pay and bonus gaps. Below is a snapshot of progress made over the last year.

Pay and reward

This year’s pay awards, across the varied remits for Prisons, Probation and MoJ, continue to reflect our ambition to develop a modern employment offer that helps us attract and retain the skills we need to deliver our business.

All pay awards within the MoJ Group have moved (i.e. MoJ, Probation Service and Prison Service) for delegated grades are subject to detailed Equality Impact Analysis and seek to reduce the gender pay gap where possible. We have therefore monitored all pay proposals to ensure we are reducing the pay gap as well as continuing to monitor gender outcomes for all bonus payments to promote a more equal distribution.

Our future work in this area will support the department to develop proposals to monitor and reduce the pay gap where possible, supported by a strong evidence-base.

Attraction and recruitment

MoJ recruitment policies take vacancy managers through best practice steps to attract a broad range of candidates from across the country and embed inclusion throughout the recruitment campaign, from assessing need in marketing, to attraction, assessment/selection and appointment.

Over the last year, we have also delivered ‘Making Fair and Effective Decisions in Recruitment’ training for those involved in stages of the recruitment cycle to help ensure we reach fair and effective decisions.  

Employee offer

The MoJ have an ongoing programme of work to harmonise people policies across the department. Over the last year we have reviewed and updated a number of our policies and guidance, including our family leave policies and the way we engage our departmental staff networks in the process. Our work on this will have a positive impact for staff and line managers with more user-friendly policies and engaging formats for support products including toolkits and animations. The updated MoJ-wide policies will reduce inconsistencies, support future system development, and assist increased confidence in fair policies.

Line manager training is being refreshed through our People Management Essentials offer and will be underpinned by the new Civil Service Line Manager Standards. This includes the MoJ People Manager Handbook that provides managers with up-to-date policy, tools and guidance to enable the department to develop more confident and competent people managers.

The 2023 People Survey results highlighted that we still have more work to do to be a menopause friendly employer. We have done some specific work on the menopause, led by the Supporting the Workplace in Menopause (SWIM) staff network, and we will continue the important work to recognise the impact of menopause and normalise the conversation.

Our work on the gender pay gap is part of our overall inclusion approach to attract and retain talent. We will build on our work to date; a summary of actions planned next year is listed below.

Action Summary

Over the next year we will continue to build on our progress to maintain representation and narrow our gender pay gap, by:

• continuing the roll out of Making Fair and Effective Decisions in Recruitment training;

• improving how we measure the impact of learning to ensure staff can perform in their role and develop to progress across the MoJ and the Civil Service;

• continuing to monitor the impact of pay deals on the gender pay gap and working closely with Government People Group to ensure our pay and reward approach is aligned with their future vision for Civil Service Reward as they develop a new Civil Service wide reward strategy;

• continuing to monitor the use of reward and recognition to ensure our policy and processes are implemented fairly and used appropriately;

To sustain our primary actions, we will undertake accompanying activities to ensure we design diversity and inclusion into everything we do and create an inclusive culture, by:

• continuing to progress the transformation of our people policies so that they are inclusive, consistent across the MoJ Group and are easy to use;

• further expansion of the People Management Essentials offer, alongside the ongoing refresh cycle of the People Manager Handbook. All learning will be underpinned by the Civil Service Line Manager Standards;

• continuing to work in partnership with departmental inclusion champions and staff networks to better understand staff experiences and to help the organisation improve and/or promote policy, guidance and support available for all staff and managers in the workplace;

• develop our policy and embed approach to ensure that people understand what is expected of them and feel safe to challenge unacceptable behaviours. This includes promoting refreshed Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault Guidance.

6. Declaration

We confirm that data reported by the Ministry of Justice 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.

MoJ Permanent Secretary: Antonia Romeo

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1. A full pay employee is defined as an employee who is paid their full basic pay – including paid leave or paid for piecework during the pay period in which their snapshot date falls. Part-time staff may be classed as full-pay. ↩

2. The Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017 (legislation.gov.uk) ↩

3. Preparing your data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) ↩

4. Other predominantly refers to Probation Service grades that have no Civil Service grade equivalent, as well as staff whose grade is unknown. ↩

5. Making your gender pay gap calculations - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) ↩

6. Search and compare gender pay gap data - Gender pay gap service - GOV.UK (gender-pay-gap.service.gov.uk) ↩

7. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/civil-service-statistics-2024/statistical-bulletin-civil-service-statistics-2024 ↩

8. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/civil-service-statistics-2024/statistical-bulletin-civil-service-statistics-2024 ↩