1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023

The gender pay gap - mean

The difference between the mean hourly rate of pay for male and female police officers and police staff expressed as a percentage:

2021/22 figures are shown in parentheses (round brackets).

The combined mean gender pay gap has increased from 12.8% last year to 14.3% this year.
On average, males earn more than females in both police officer and police staff groups.

In understanding the combined mean, it is important to bear in mind that this figure combines the very different police officer and police staff groups. The pay, grading/rank structure and gender compositions for each of these groups are different. There are national pay scales for police officers which tend to be higher than the average salaries for police staff.

The force employs 65.37% male officers and 67.28% female police staff therefore having a marked effect on the combined figure. Specifically, 63.4% (50.8% last year) of all police officers are male constables. The average hourly rate for male police officers is £19.86 (compared to £19.64 last year). In contrast, 66.19% (48.17% last year) of all police staff are females employed within grades A, B, C and D. The average hourly rate for female police staff is £14.07 (compared to £14.81 last year).

If looking at police officers, the mean pay gap is 5.8% (6.5% last year). For police staff, the mean pay gap is 10.4% (8.8% last year), both of which are lower than the combined gender pay gap.

The recruitment profile also has an impact on the gender pay gap. It is positive that more females are being recruited as police officers but the concentration at the lower starting salary at police constable rank has an impact on the gender pay gap.

During this reporting period 584 police officers joined (358 male and 226 female). The majority of the joiners were student constables (332 male and 216 female). The percentage of female student constables is 39.42%, which is higher compared to the 34.63% of female officers at all ranks.

To further highlight this impact the gender distribution in the police constable rank pay points shows that there is a higher percentage of females at the constable rank are in the lower pay points than males at constable rank:

Conversely at the highest pay point (07) there is a higher percentage of males at constable rank 42.56% compared with 35.59% of females at constable rank.

For police staff two thirds of females are paid at grades A to D, compared with a little over half of males. At the other end of the pay grades there are six male chief officers (staff) and no females. These two factors have the effect of increasing the male mean pay.

The gender pay gap - median

The following table shows the difference between the median hourly rate of pay for male and female police officers and police staff expressed as a percentage:

2021/22 figures are shown in parentheses (round brackets).

The combined median pay gap of 22.7% is likely to be due to the differing pay structures for police officers and police staff, with a majority of police officers being appointed at the entry of the pay structure for constables whilst police staff are appointed to the relevant grade appropriate to the role.

To illustrate this effect, for police officers the mid-point for both genders is in the constable pay bracket, point 05 (£15.49 hourly rate) for females and point 07 (£20.62 hourly rate) for males. In contrast, for police staff the mid-point for males is scp 19 (£13.70 hourly rate, grade C/D), for females it is scp 15 (£12.20 hourly rate grade C).

It is recognised that the 23.3% police officer median pay gap is significantly higher than last year, up from 6.5% to 23.3%. This increase is largely due to the impact of 106 student constables joining at the end of March 2023. These officers have correctly been included in the employment data for this gender pay gap report but are showing as having a £0 hourly rate, because they had not yet been processed through payroll. Payroll and Pensions Department have confirmed that this is accurate in terms of compliance with the reporting requirements. If these officers were removed from the data, the police officer median pay gap would be 13.4%. However, removing these officers had no impact on the combined median pay gap figure, in all likelihood because the 106 officers were a much smaller proportion of the combined data set.

Since the median hourly pay is found by arranging the hourly rates of pay from largest to smallest and selecting the hourly rate that is in the middle, the promotion profile has an impact on the median pay gap.

In relation to promotion through the ranks the percentage of female representation has increased at:

• constable (from 35.77% to 36.6%)
• sergeant (from 25.23% to 26.64%)
• chief inspector (from 28.00% to 32.14%)
• superintendent (from 21.88% to 37.04%)
• assistant chief constable (from 33.33% to 40.00%)

However, at other ranks female representation has decreased, specifically inspector (from 27.46% to 25.51%) and chief superintendent (from 26.67% to 25.00%). Female representation at these ranks has mainly been affected by retirements and promotions. This shows that females are successful at moving through the ranks although the successful recruitment of a greater proportion of female officers at the lower student constable rank will, inevitably, have had an impact on the mean gender pay gap. Work continues to promote gender progression, for both police officers and police staff.

Female representation was above the force average at superintendent and assistant chief constable ranks. Female representation increased at constable, sergeant, chief inspector, superintendent and assistant chief constable levels.

The bonus gender pay gap - mean

2021/22 figures are shown in parentheses (round brackets).

Overall, the mean pay gap for bonuses has significantly reduced for both officers and staff and the combined figure has also decreased from 15.8% in the last reporting period to 6.8% currently.

The bonus gender pay gap - median

2021/22 figures are shown in parentheses (round brackets).

The proportion of males and females receiving a bonus payment

2021/22 figures are shown in parentheses (round brackets).

The force continues to make bonus payments to only a relatively small proportion of individuals. This makes meaningful analysis difficult, although the increased number of payments made to females has led to significant reductions in the gender bonus pay gap figures since the inception of pay gap reporting.

In this current reporting period 1,050 bonus payments were made to officers (802 last year). The proportion of females receiving a bonus payment within the force has continued to increase to 15.3% (14.22% last year). The proportion of males receiving a bonus payment within the force has also increased to 17.9% (15.84% last year).

The mean pay gap for police officers has reduced further from 7.1% to 5.7% and the median pay gap remains at 0%. For police staff the number of bonus payments made was much smaller at 87 (124 last year) with a mean bonus pay gap of -5.4% in favour of females (34.1% last year) and a median bonus pay gap of -10% in favour of females (60.0% last year). Overall, although the proportion of bonus payments made is relatively small the combined mean bonus gender pay gap has decreased to 6.8% (15.8% last year) whilst the combined median remains at 0% demonstrating no gender pay gap.

Overall, the pay gap for bonuses has significantly reduced for both officers and staff from the last reporting period and since the start of gender pay gap reporting.

The proportion of males and females in each quartile pay range

2021/22 figures are shown in parentheses (round brackets).