Gender Pay Gap Report 2018

Today we are publishing Cancer Research UK’s gender pay gap.

There is a government requirement for all companies with over 250 employees to publish their gender pay gap data. We welcome this opportunity to be transparent about our gender pay gap and have included a full copy of the report on our website. The 2018 gender pay gap figures published in this report are calculated on pay on our snapshot date, 5 April 2018.

Over the year, we are pleased to report that we reduced our mean gender pay gap from 18.7% in 2017, to 17.8% in 2018. This is a greater reduction than seen across the whole of the UK (17.4% to 17.1%*). Although we have improved our gender pay gap we clearly aren’t where we want to be, and recognise we still have work to do.

The Gender Pay Gap is not the same as Equal Pay, which has been a legal requirement in the UK for over 50 years and involves men and women being paid the same for like/similar work. When they do the same job, men and women are paid equally at Cancer Research UK. If we had an equal representation of men and women at all levels and in all types of roles in Cancer Research UK, there would be no pay gap.

The Gender Pay Gap is the difference in average pay between all men and women regardless of the work they perform.

The majority of the people that work for Cancer Research UK are women (76%), however they only represent 67% of our most senior roles. Despite a tangible shift in women at the most senior levels, we have a disproportionate number of men in senior roles, and in technical roles that typically attract higher levels of pay. We also have more women in typically lower paid roles, such as those in retail, which make up the largest proportion of our workforce.

Creating a diverse working culture is hugely important to us at Cancer Research UK and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion is central to our People Strategy. We have made progress in reducing our gender pay gap from last year, but we must go further. We are setting ourselves ambitious targets to ensure we make improvements in the next 12 months.

I have agreed with our Trustees that we will set targets; the proportion of women we have in senior roles and technology roles: the two of the primary drivers of our gender pay gap. We are aiming to:

• Reach a minimum of 50% women in our two most senior roles, executive director and director, within three years to give us more balanced senior leadership teams. In the last year we have increased the number of women in these roles from 40% to 45%. We will also continue to produce balanced and inclusive shortlists for senior appointments
   
• Achieve gender parity in our technology roles within three years. We are also signed up to the Tech Talent Charter pledge, which works to bring together industries and organisations with the aim of driving diversity and addressing gender imbalance in technology roles

Other measures we are taking to address our gender pay gap include:

• Nurturing female talent at senior levels: we have made progress and are proud to have increased the number of female heads of department from 74% to 78% in the past year. We are committed to supporting them in becoming the directors and executive directors of the future
• Flexible working: we already consider flexible working patterns and locations for all our roles and endeavour to meet all requests where we can do so. We are modernising the technology we give to our employees to enable more flexible working, and to provide a more inclusive working environment for those working away from our main offices

We are very passionate about our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion strategy and are committed to reducing our gender pay gap further across Cancer Research UK.

Michelle Mitchell OBE
Chief Executive Officer Cancer Research UK