Savills’ latest gender and ethnicity pay gap report for 2021 reveals a four percentage point increase in its mean hourly gender pay gap from 35.57% in 2020 to 39.6% this year.
It median hourly gender pay gap shifted only marginally in the right direction from 41.2% to 41.17%. Its mean gender bonus gap reduced from 78.61% to 77.25% over the period.
Despite the moves backwards, Savills said it now had 23% of women in its business in the highest pay quartile, which was the largest proportion since it started measuring its pay gap in 2018. The figure then was just 18%.
The report also shows Savills’ ethnicity pay gap figures. It reveals a small shift in bonus pay gap from 56.84% in 2020 to 56.15% and an increase in its mean average hourly ethnicity pay gap to 22.65% from 19.59% in 2020.
The firm said this shift was because it had more minority ethnic recruits joining the firm at junior levels.
Siân Tunney, Savills UK board director and chair of the firm’s gender diversity group, said: “Our commitment is to helping everyone in the business fulfil their potential, as well as attracting new talent.
“We have built firm foundations to achieve this as we continue to develop training and mentoring programmes to build a more confident and empowered workforce, while doing everything we can to remove any real and perceived barriers to progression.”
Steve Sze, chair of Savills’ ethnicity group, said: “We know the hard work we have put in to improve access to Savills has resulted in tangible change with the percentage of minority ethnic employees increasing by 5%, contributing to a small, but nonetheless important improvement in the overall diversity of staff.
“However, because this recruitment has been most pronounced amongst those just starting their careers with us, this has now resulted in a widening of the pay gap. We will continue to focus on how we can improve in the upper quartiles.”
Richard Rees, Savills’ UK managing director, acknowledged the firm needed to do more to address diversity at senior levels within the business and pointed to the recent appointment of Chanelle Gray as the new role of UK head of diversity & inclusion as part of its commitment to progressing its D&I strategy.
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