The Royal College of Physicians' (RCP) gender pay gap report is a snapshot of RCP employee data on 5 April 2019.
Gender pay gap
On 5 April 2019, the RCP employed 385 staff, of which 67% were female and 33% were male. The mean gender pay gap was 14.8%, an increase of 4.5% from 2018. According to the Office for National Statistics, the mean 2019 gender pay gap for all UK employees was 17.3%.
Understanding the data
Reasons for the change in gender pay gap include:
- recruitment of a high proportion of female staff to the RCP’s new offices in Liverpool (for which staff receive a regional salary minus London-weighting allowance)
- appointment of predominantly female apprentices who were in receipt of an apprentice salary (which is typically lower than staff who are not undertaking an apprenticeship scheme receive)
- an increase in the proportion of female staff in the lower pay quartile (74% in 2019 versus 60% in 2018).
How we are working to reduce the gender pay gap
The RCP, led by the executive team, is committed to fair pay irrespective of gender. In 2018, Dr Ian Bullock (chief executive of the RCP) committed to reducing the gender pay gap within 5 years.
To do this, we will continue to build on actions and initiatives that include the following:
- continuing to support and promote flexible working
- making pay for shared parental leave equitable to maternity pay to promote uptake from male staff
- extending our offering of equality and diversity training resources for RCP staff
- assessing outcomes from an independent equality, diversity and inclusion review
- reviewing the RCP’s pay and reward policy with proposals for improvement to be put forward in 2020.
The gender pay gap 2019 data has been calculated according to the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017.