The University supports the principle of equal pay for work of equal value. We were one of the first universities to introduce an Equal Pay Policy (staff login required) and we publish annual Equality, Diversity and Social Responsibility reports (staff login required) which describe the wide range of activities and initiatives that the University is involved with every year to celebrate and promote diversity.
- We have conducted annual Equal Pay Audits since 2003, before the Government introduced a statutory duty in 2017. These audits complement our aims of fairly rewarding staff, increasing efficiency and enhancing our reputation.View Government guidance and definitionsor visit the Government's website for Gender Pay Gap Data
- View our most recent Equality, Diversity and Inclusion annual report
- Visit the Government's website for Gender Pay Gap data
A gender pay gap is a difference between the average (mean or median) pay of all men and women across all jobs in the organisation. A gender pay gap does not mean that men and women are paid different rates for the same work (which is illegal). It means that, on average, there may be more women in lower-paid jobs and more men in higher-paid jobs.
The statutory pay gap calculation uses the hourly rate of pay for each person, and includes core staff, hourly paid academic tutors/associate lecturers, and casual workers. For staff with variable hours it is based on the 12 months to the census date at the end of March. For staff with a regular salary it is based on just the March pay.
Gender Pay Gap data
The following data relates to a March 2024 snapshot for publication in 2025.
Benchmarked against the latest national data available for the sector our mean and median pay compare favourably with all benchmark groups. The mean pay gap uses the average pay of all staff in a group. The median pay gap uses the pay of the middle person in a group, if that group is sorted in order of hourly pay rate.
Chart 1. Gender Pay Gap trends
The gender pay gap calculation excludes staff who have declared as non-binary or gender queer.
Graph description: The median gender pay gap at the university shows a declining trend from 12.0% in 2017 to 5.1% in 2024. The mean gender pay gap also decreases from 20.9% in 2017 to 3.9% in 2024, with some fluctuations. A dotted line is shown for ONS public sector data which remain relatively stable, with the median gender pay gap declining slightly from 19.3% in 2017 to 13.5% in 2024, while the mean pay gap shifts from 17.7% to 12.9% over the same period. Overall, the university's gender pay gap has significantly reduced over time, closing faster than the broader public sector averages. In the latest year the University is significantly better than both the mean and median benchmark.
Women are well-represented at all levels including our most senior academic, professional and leadership roles, and this is reflected in our Mean Gender Pay Gap of 3.9%, which remains much better than the pay gap in the UK workforce. The median pay gap is the Government’s preferred measure. Our Median Gender Pay Gap of 5.1% is slightly up, but still the lowest of any year before 2023.
Table 1. Recent Gender Pay Gap trends
|
Year^ |
Median Gender Pay Gap (University of Sunderland) |
Mean Gender Pay Gap (University of Sunderland) |
Median Public Sector (ONS*) |
Mean Public Sector (ONS*) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
2017 |
20.9% |
12.0% |
17.7% |
19.3% |
|
2018 |
15.4% |
14.6% |
17.4% |
19.0% |
|
2019 |
21.2% |
15.5% |
15.7% |
16.8% |
|
2020 |
18.5% |
8.6% |
14.7% |
16.0% |
|
2021 |
11.2% |
8.2% |
15.6% |
17.3% |
|
2022 |
7.3% |
6.0% |
13.6% |
15.9% |
|
2023 |
8.5% |
4.4% |
13.0% |
14.2% |
|
2024 |
3.9% |
5.1% |
12.9% |
13.5% |
*Office of National Statistics: Latest revised Annual survey of hours and earnings (ASHE) gender pay gap tables. 2023 revised figures now incorporated.
^Years are census dates. Pay Gaps are published the following year.
Our Median Gender Pay Gap partly reflects the fact that there are some roles at the lower end of our pay structure, such as casual, intern, domestic and entry-level administrative roles which tend to be predominantly filled by women. Chart 3 shows the number of men and women in hourly pay bands, demonstrating that there are substantially more women in the £11-20 bands.
Chart 2. Distribution of male and female staff by hourly rate in £10 bands
Graph description: The distribution of men and women across different hourly pay bands in £10 increments. The x-axis represents the hourly pay bands, while the y-axis indicates the number of individuals in each band.
The data shows that the majority of both men and women fall within the £11-£20 and £21-£30 pay bands, with women peaking at over 1000 individuals in the £11-£20 range, compared to men who peak at around 600 individuals in the same range. Beyond £30 per hour, the number of individuals in each pay band declines significantly, with very few men or women earning above £50 per hour.
The overall trend suggests that a larger proportion of women are concentrated in lower pay bands, while the distribution of men follows a similar pattern but with slightly higher representation in higher pay brackets.
The University has become a Real Living Wage employer, which has reduced the number of staff in the £1-10 per hour band and increased the number in the £11-20 per hour band. More women than men benefitted from this increase.
No staff were paid less than £9.50 per hour on average. The £9-10 pay band is now almost entirely casual workers (including External Examiners) and Graduate Interns. The £11-20 band encompasses entry level Lecturers and Academic Tutors, admin/ professional/manual/technical roles and casual workers.
Chart 3. Staff movement by pay band between March 2023 and March 2024
Graph description: This graph shows the difference in the number of men and women within each £10 hourly pay band. Positive values indicate more people in that gender category compared to the other, while negative values show fewer.
The graph highlights that significantly more women than men earn between £11–£30 per hour, especially in the £11–£20 band (+136 women). In contrast, more men than women earn in the higher pay bands starting from £31–£40 and above, peaking at a +156 male difference in the £31–£40 band.
Bonuses
The Government requires organisations to specify the pay gap in any bonus pay.
Our very low number of bonuses means that the statutory calculation is not statistically meaningful.
The University paid very few payments that count for the bonus pay gap in the latest period. Often these were one-off recognition payments for temporary extra responsibilities. 0.6% of men (14 staff) and 0.6% of women (13 staff) received a bonus (recognition payment) in the 12 months to 31st March 2024.
- The Mean Bonus Gender Pay Gap is -20.6% (in favour of women). This is the difference between the average bonus paid to the men and women who received a bonus.
- The Median Bonus Gender Pay Gap is -26.2% (in favour of women). This compares the actual bonus paid to the middle person in the list of men and the list of women who received a bonus.
Quartiles
Lastly, the Government requires organisations to rank all staff according to pay and split them into 4 equal groups (quartiles) then publish what proportion of each quartile is men or women.
- Our upper (fourth) quartile is the highest paid quarter of our workforce. This is evenly split by gender (53.4% women, up from 50.7% last year). It includes Senior Managers, Professors and Associate Professors, senior academics and non-academic professionals.
- Our upper middle (third) quartile includes many professional support grades, Lecturers and Senior Lecturers, Academic Tutors and Casual Workers.
- The majority of women in the lowest quartile is a significant influence on our overall pay gap.
The data for quartiles is shown in the chart below:
Chart 4. Quartiles by gender
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Graph description: The bar chart shows the four different pay quartiles and the difference between men and women. The lowest quartile is 57.4% women (468 individuals) in comparison to 42.6% men (347 individuals). The lower middle quartile is 62.3% women (509) and 37.7% men (308). Upper middle is 59.5% women (468) and 40.5% men (331). The upper quartile is 53.4% women (436) in comparison to 46.6% men (380).