Gender and ethnicity pay gap: data interpretation guidance

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has developed this best practice guidance for RIBA Chartered Practices who report on their gender and ethnicity pay gap data, either voluntarily or as a legal requirement.

Notes on data interpretation

1. The gender and ethnicity pay gap is not to be confused with equal pay requirements which stipulate that people doing ‘like work’ or ‘work of equal value’ must receive the same or equal pay. Both are important issues, which need to be addressed and practices seeking to measure and improve their gender and ethnicity pay gap should take the time to ensure that they do not have an equal pay (for example: pay discrimination) issue as well.

2. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) headline measure of the gender pay gap specifically is calculated as the difference between median gross hourly earnings (excluding overtime) as a proportion of median gross hourly earnings (excluding overtime) for men. Crucially, this measure does not take into account equal pay for equal work. This is expressed as a percentage of men’s earnings (for example: women earn X% less than men).

• a gender pay gap of zero indicates that men and women in an organisation are, on average, paid the same for each hour worked
• A positive gender pay gap figure indicates that women are paid less per hour than men
• a negative gender pay gap figure indicates that women are paid more per hour than men

3. Organisations which are legally required to disclose their data will report both their median and their mean gender pay gap. The median is the number that falls in the middle of a range when everyone’s wages are lined up from smallest to largest. The mean is calculated by adding up all of the wages of employees in a company and dividing that figure by the number of employees. Both measures provide useful information and insights.

4. It is important to recognise that a mean pay gap favouring men/white employees does not necessarily show that all men/white employees in the organisation are paid more per hour than all women/Black, Asian, and minority ethnic colleagues. The mean pay gap is often influenced by the composition of the highest-paid employees in the organisation, particularly if there is a large pay differential between this highest-paid cohort and other employees in the organisation.

5. The median pay gap shows the difference in the hourly pay rate to the ‘middle’ individuals in the organisation. It does not capture the extent of pay inequality across the range of genders and ethnicities.

6. The gender pay gap varies by occupation, age, and even working patterns. For example: the gap tends to be higher in industry sectors such as finance, energy, and construction and lower in sectors such as public administration, support services, and social work.

Things to consider when interpreting data

It is important to recognise that side-by-side comparisons of standard form gender pay gap reports may be misleading.

For instance – differences arise between practices operating as partnerships and those operating as limited liability companies. Partners are not ‘employees’, whereas directors of limited liability companies are.

On identical sets of salary data, it is likely that the gender pay gaps reported by the limited liability company will be larger than those of the partnership. Partnerships may choose to analyse the additional information and publish it in their supporting documentation, including their mean and median gender pay gaps, but they are not currently obliged to disclose it on the government portal.

A practice may report ‘worse’ gender pay gap figures in any given snapshot due to taking measures to improve its situation. It may also be distorted by leavers, starters, maternity leave, and unpaid leave.

For instance, a large gender pay gap may be reported if a male-dominated business tries to address its gender imbalance by recruiting more women, initially in junior professional roles. Women in junior roles are likely to be paid in the lower half of the hourly pay distribution, and therefore the share of women in the lower half of the pay distribution will increase. The difference in the amount paid per hour to the ‘middle man’ and the ‘middle woman’ may also increase, widening the median gender pay gap in the short term.

It is true that this practice could seek to redress its gender imbalance by recruiting women into senior roles. However, if this implies recruiting them from other practices this will not improve the overall situation for women in senior roles across the profession.

This issue emphasises the need for practices to analyse the causes of their gap, and to publish a narrative and action plan with their data.

Understanding the gender and ethnicity pay gap in architecture

It is worth noting that there are two primary reasons for the median gender pay gap reported by architecture practices, and professional practices more generally:

1. Men dominate the senior roles, and therefore the better-paid roles, in these practices (and the upper two quartiles of the pay distribution)

2. Women in the organisations are more likely to be in the bottom half of the pay distribution as:

• women dominate the relatively lower-paid administrative and support roles
• the distribution of female professionals tends to be more junior than the distribution of male professionals

A high mean gender pay in favour of men will typically arise when the most senior employee roles in the organisation are held by men and there is a high pay differential between these roles and the amounts paid to other employees – a large proportion, if not a majority, of which are female.

While we see women and those from Black, Asian, and minority ethnic backgrounds qualifying in the profession increasing, much can be done to ensure that the gender and ethnicity pay gap is actively closed.

Gender and ethnicity pay gaps in architecture in the UK

The majority of architecture practices in the UK are micro, small, and medium-sized organisations. Less are considered ‘large organisations’, employing at least 250 people, and therefore are not obliged to submit gender pay gap reports. Due to these small numbers, even less practices will be able to collect ethnicity pay gap data without risking the identification of individual submissions.

In 2025, RIBA will be responding to a commissioned report from the Fawcett Society on gender inequity in the profession. Find out more about this ongoing work.