Gender Pay Gap Report 2024
A word from our Head of DE&I and ESG
At Azets, our purpose is “to improve the lives of our colleagues, our clients and our communities in a sustainable way”. Diversity and inclusion is one of our key areas of focus to support this and is a key pillar of our Pathway strategy.
We are pleased to share that we continue to make good progress in reducing our pay gap, with a further 2.08% reduction in our mean pay gap and 3.65% reduction in our median pay gap, over the last 12 months. This builds on our steady downward trend since 2020, with our mean pay gap decreasing by 9.3% points. These improvements reflect our ongoing efforts to promote and attract more women into senior roles and more men into junior positions.
The Gender Pay Gap report is a crucial tool in shaping our AUK Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) strategy. It is underpinned by 3 key objectives and a set number of ambitious targets to ensure we continue making meaningful progress.
We remain committed to having transparent and fair recruitment, promotion and reward processes, and creating an environment where all our people can thrive and achieve their career aspirations through equity of opportunity.
Helen Hall, Head of DE&I and ESG
Gender Pay Gap Report 2024
As set out in Azets UK Pathway and 8 Business Priorities, we are committed to improving the diversity of our workforce across all levels by building a culture that’s genuinely inclusive and culture where everyone can fulfil their potential and be themselves.
The UK Government requires all employers with 250 or more employees to annually disclose their gender pay gap using the following metrics:
- Percentage of men and women in each hourly pay quarter
- Mean (average) gender pay gap using hourly pay
- Median (middle) gender pay gap using hourly pay
- Percentage of men and women receiving a bonus
- Mean (average) gender pay gap using bonus pay
- Median (middle) gender pay gap using bonus pay
The data in our gender pay analysis, taken on the 5th April 2024, has been calculated using the standard methodologies set out in the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017. It is based on FTE equivalent salaries for those who are part time.
Understanding Gender Pay
The gender pay gap is calculated by comparing the mean (average), and median (middle) hourly earnings of men and women based on the snapshot date of 5th April 2024. The mean and median bonus gap is based on bonus payments including performance, and other one-off payments received in the 12-months leading up to 5th April 2024.
The gender pay gap is not the same as equal pay. Equal pay is about ensuring that men and women performing the same or equivalent work are paid the same, whereas the gender pay gap is a statistical calculation which looks at the difference between the median and mean salaries of all females and all males across the organisation.
What impacts Gender Pay?
Gender minority representation (or lack of it) at both a senior level and lower level – i.e. the more females we have at the lower end of the pay scale, the lower the average salary relative to male employees.
Gender Pay Gap 2024 Summary
Our pay gaps are historically driven by under-representation of females in senior roles within Azets and is further impacted by many new acquisitions, where typically, there are a higher number of Senior Leaders/Partners who are men, transferring to Azets.
Azets has a mean (average) pay gap of 21.96% and a median (middle) pay gap of 10.04%.
We are delighted to report an improvement of 2.08% to our mean gender pay gap and an improvement of 3.65% to our median gender pay gap over the last 12 months. The pay gap continues the downward trend since 2020, as we recruit more women into our senior roles and more men into our junior positions. In total, our mean pay gap has reduced by 9.3% since 2020 and our median pay gap by 11.22%.
This sustained improvement is a testament to the improvements we have introduced over the last year, through our DE&I strategy and 4-point gender pay action plan. There have been many new attraction, selection, development and retention initiatives delivered to make Azets stand out from its competitors and attract and retain the diverse talent we need to deliver our growth aspirations.
We now have 34% of women in our senior roles (Partner & Director) which is a 2% improvement from the previous 12 months.
When the report was run, we had a gender split of 49% male and 51% female across the UK business overall; however, the number of females in our upper pay quartile is 40.87%, and whilst this shows a 1.94% increase from April 2023, this lower proportion of women is the key reason for Azets UK pay gap.
Our mean bonus gap is 66.02% and our median bonus gap is 53.75%. These have both slightly increased from last year and this is largely due to a greater proportion of men in our senior roles which results in a higher average and median score. However, during 2023-4, the percentage of both men and women receiving a bonus increased to 17.89% (men) and 14.76% for women, which has closed the gap from previous years.
Our aspiration to be a responsible employer and enhancing our DE&I commitments continues to be a key priority for Azets UK, as we continue to progress with the actions to improve the transparency and fairness of our people processes.
At Azets, our colleagues in Partner roles are employees of the business and are included in our gender pay gap data. In many of our competitor businesses, Partners are not classed as employees, and as a result, their pay data is not included, in their statutory gender pay gap reporting although is sometimes reported in other publicly available information. Taking that information into account, it is difficult to correctly compare ourselves to others, in our industry.
Our Gender Pay and Bonus Gap Data
Mean | Median | |||
Pay Gap | 21.96% | -2.08% (from 2023) | 10.04% | -3.65% (from 2023) |
Bonus Gap | 66.02% | +3.67% (from 2023) | 53.75% | +9.40% (from 2023) |
Proportion of men and women in each pay quarter
Bonus Recipients
Bonus Recipients | Men | Women |
Proportion of men and women receiving bonuses | 17.89% (10.66% in 2023) | 14.76% (8.51% in 2023) |
What are we doing to close our gender pay gap?
Azets UK is committed to closing the gender pay gap, and we recognise that achieving this requires increasing the number of women in senior roles. While there is no quick fix, we remain focused on our key objective: to have a more even gender balance in the upper pay quarter.
Over the past year we have:
- Attracted Diverse Talent
- Updated Azets UK DE&I strategy, with a specific objective developed to increasing, and tracking the diversity of our senior leaders.
- Improved the DE&I narrative on Azets.co.uk website to demonstrate its importance to Azets, alongside sharing success stories from our internal female talent, externally.
- Refreshed Azets UK Employee Value Proposition to promote life/work balance.
- Enhanced our family friendly policies by launching new IVF and Miscarriage policies and improved our maternity and paternity pay. At the same time, we introduced return to work coaching and mentoring for returning parents.
- Increased equal opportunities by launching an internal vacancy website.
- WE NOW HAVE 34% OF WOMEN IN OUR SENIOR ROLES (PARTNER & DIRECTOR) WHICH IS A 2% IMPROVEMENT OVER THE PRECEDING 12 MONTHS.
- Assured Unbiased Selection
- Introduced and embedded an Azets UK Partner & Director recruitment & promotion process, which includes a selection panel, independent reviewer and training for panel members and candidates.
- 97% of employees have completed Unconscious Bias training.
- Improved the transparency of our roles by standardising role profiles and introducing career pathways for all employees across the UK.
- Trained Early Career Hiring Managers on selection skills.
- WE WELCOMED 22 NEW PARTNERS, 23% WERE WOMEN.
- Developed Diverse Talent
- Embedded annual talent/succession planning processes and identified a talent pipeline for future leadership roles.
- Completed Cohorts 2 & 3 of Journey to Advisory Leadership Development programme, with approx. 42% of delegates, being women.
- Launched a new ‘Accelerate Future’s Manager’ 12-month programme to develop our future leaders. >160 delegates, 57% of delegates are women.
- Piloted 2 women’s Lean In Circles and now reviewing next steps.
- Introducing ED&I e-learning training for all new and current employees.
- IN 2024, OUT OF 12 PROMOTIONS TO PARTNER, 5 (42%) WERE WOMEN.
- Retained Diverse Talent
- Introduced an inclusive group Amazing Azets Awards and monthly Azets UK Living the Values Awards to recognise the contribution of women & men.
- Working in partnership with the Authentically Azets D&I Network, we celebrated 6 diversity events including International Women’s day, which included round tables, educational articles, quizzes and employee stories.
- A gender indicator has been designed for the 2025 annual pay review spreadsheet to analyse proposals, before approval.
- DURING 2024, OUR D&I ENPS INCREASED BY 10 POINTS TO 55, AND REPORTED TO BE ABOVE BENCHMARK.
Looking forward we are developing our 4-point action plan that will:
- Attract Diverse Talent
- Continue to review, track and update the AUK DE&I strategy and provide new real life success stories of women in Azets UK on our intranets, website and social media channels.
- Increase the attractiveness of our roles to women by reducing the number of job criteria. We will also be trialling publishing an end date on the advert.
- Proactive promotion of our women leaders on social media, including new starters, through external awards public speaking etc.
- We have provided gender SLAs to Exec Search companies to ensure they provide a diverse short list.
- Explore joining Women in Finance Network to raise profile and share good practices.
- Assure Unbiased Selection
- Upskill our line managers’ competence by rolling out ‘Licensed to Recruit’, skills-based recruitment training for all recruiting managers.
- Further enhance the objectivity of our senior leadership selection process by introducing the use of psychometrics tools.
- Develop Diverse Talent
- Continue to educate and increase the knowledge of our workforce by ensuring all staff have completed a mandatory ED&I e-learning module.
- Introduce and embed a formal career path framework across all functions and service lines to assure role and development transparency.
- Build a standardised group Job Architecture and reward framework across Azets to support employee mobility and pay transparency.
- Introduce tailored development opportunities for women including sponsorship, mentorship, reverse mentioning etc.
- Attend the Women of the Future Programme to provide access to industry role models and best practices to Azets UK.
- Launch a ‘Manager Induction’ programme and Manager Guides to ensure our line managers are well equipped to manage and support diverse teams.
- Develop a Leadership development programme for Partners.
- Retain Diverse Talent
- Introduce pronouns and other personal choice information as part of employee footers.
- Include a gender indicator to the master annual pay review spreadsheet to analyse proposals before approval.
- Explore the introduction of a Women’s Network.
I confirm the data reported is accurate and has been calculated according to the legal requirements.
Helen Hall, Head of DE&I and ESG
Year | Mean hourly gender pay gap | Median hourly gender pay gap | Mean bonus gender pay gap | Median bonus gender pay gap |
2020 | 31.26% | 21.26% | 76.42% | 57.66% |
2021 | 29.27% | 23.1% | 53.24% | 50% |
2022 | 29.72% | 20.63% | 61.81% | 70% |
2023 | 24.04% | 13.69% | 62.35% | 44.35% |
2024 | 21.96% | 10.04% | 66.02% | 53.75% |
Percentage of men and women in each hourly pay quarter | |||||
Upper Pay Quarter | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
% Men | 62.01% | 63.32% | 63.72% | 61.07% | 59.13% |
% Women | 37.99% | 36.68% | 36.28% | 38.93% | 40.87% |
Upper Middle Pay Quarter | |||||
% Men | 39.33% | 43.46% | 41.85% | 44.59% | 47.70% |
% Women | 60.67% | 56.54% | 58.15% | 55.41% | 52.30% |
Lower Middle Pay Quarter | |||||
% Men | 33.96% | 37.06% | 34.38% | 36.33% | 38.04% |
% Women | 66.04% | 62.94% | 65.62% | 63.67% | 61.96% |
Lower Pay Quarter | |||||
% Men | 41.88% | 39.59% | 43.48% | 49.21% | 50.82% |
% Women | 58.12% | 60.41% | 56.52% | 50.79% | 49.18% |
Percentage of men and women receiving a bonus | |||||
2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | |
% of Men with bonus | 36.14% | 16.14% | 13.16% | 10.66% | 17.89% |
% of Women with bonus | 27.43% | 13.19% | 7.89% | 8.51% | 14.76% |