The University of Sussex has submitted its annual gender pay gap report to the UK Government Equalities Office. It has also published the latest data on ethnicity and disability pay gaps at Sussex. 

A pay gap is a measure of the difference between what, on average, one group of staff earn compared to another group across an organisation. The gender pay gap report looks specifically at the difference between earnings for men and women overall within an organisation. 

A pay gap is different from equal pay, which is the right for individuals to be paid the same amount for the same/equivalent work, or work of equal value. Find out more about pay gap reporting.  

Gender pay gap 

Our mean gender pay gap for 2022 is 17.9%, a reduction of 0.5 % percentage points compared to last year. Our median gender pay gap has also reduced, from 12.7% to 12.0%. 

The main driver for the gender pay gap at Sussex is the gender demographic of our workforce. We have more women than men in lower-grade roles, and more men than women in higher-grade roles, particularly in our academic community.  

Siobhan O’Reilly, Director of Human Resources, said: "The University is committed to tackling the gender pay gap, having set an ambitious target to halve the mean gender pay gap to 10.4% by 2025. This is a stretch target, and there is more for us to do to work towards our target but we are taking steps in the right direction. 

"Work is underway to reshape our recruitment policy and procedure and we are taking action to tackle unconscious bias in the recruitment process. For example, we aim for gender-balanced shortlists for our senior roles. We are addressing gendered impact on promotion and career progression of female academics due to caring and parenting responsibilities, and aim to improve support for academics taking carers leave to reduce the impact on their careers. 

“We have recently created an additional role within our HR leadership team (Assistant Director of Culture, Equality and Inclusion) to further focus on these key areas and help to drive the improvements needed. 

"We are reviewing our pay structures and policies to find and address any gendered inequalities. This includes work to update the professorial pay framework to improve pay parity between roles at grade 10, and have implemented a new pay framework for the University Leadership Team (ULT) (and all other grade 10 staff in Professional Services) to narrow any gaps which previously existed. Our market supplement policy is also being updated to help ensure parity when applying these payments.” 

Our Gender Equality Action Plan outlines our commitments to improving gender equality across the University, and includes actions we are taking to address the gender pay gap.  

In addition to the gender pay gap, the University follows recommended best practice and reports disability and ethnicity pay gaps. The same data set and methodology are used for all three pay gaps.