Wellcome’s gender and ethnicity pay gaps

Gender pay gap is the difference between the average hourly rates of pay for men and women. Ethnicity pay gap is the difference between the average hourly rates of pay for people from racially minoritised groups and white people.

Comparing average rates of pay reflects broad trends in employment and salaries.

On 5 April 2023, Wellcome had a gender gap in median pay of 16.2%. This is wider than the UK average, reported as 14.3% in 2023 by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Our gender gap in mean pay was 21.4%.

Our median gender pay gap has risen this year. This is mostly due to higher rates of men being promoted into mid-levels in the organisation. The median rate of pay has gone up for both men and women, however it has gone up more for men.

Over the past seven years, our gender pay gap has reduced steadily. Since 2017, the mean has reduced by 8.6%, from 30% in 2017 to 21.4% in 2023.

Despite the increase in the median gender pay gap this year, the consistent reduction in our mean gender pay gap suggests the overall downward trend will be sustained.

We categorise ethnicity as either ‘ethnic minority’ or ‘non-ethnic minority’. This reflects the terminology used by the data analysts we partner with. We acknowledge the limits of these terms and expect our approach to continue to evolve.

On 5 April 2023, Wellcome had an ethnicity gap in median pay of 3.3%. This has decreased from 5.6% in 2022.

The decrease in median pay gap is predominantly due to recruitment and pay changes at mid-levels of the organisation.

Our mean ethnicity pay gap has increased from 9.4% in 2022 to 12.7% in 2023. This is mostly due to low representation of people from racially minoritised groups at senior levels.

Interpretation of ethnicity pay gap data should be tentative as Wellcome has not received ethnicity data from about 15% of our employees. This is a significant proportion of the workforce and could affect pay gap calculations.

In 2023 we appointed our first Chief Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Officer who leads our work to become an inclusive funder and supports Wellcome in becoming an inclusive employer through collaboration with our entire executive leadership team. 

We have also introduced a diversity data dashboard and regular reviews of this at executive leadership meetings.

On our gender pay gap in 2023, we have: 

• reviewed and improved our parental leave policies to be more inclusive and better support new parents
• completed a pilot management development programme for people managers, including a module on inclusion and with equity, diversity and inclusion good practice embedded throughout

On our ethnicity pay gap in 2023, we have: 

• introduced racial fluency training, which has been completed by 68% of employees at the time of writing
• introduced anti-racism action plans for executive leadership team members, and put in place methods to measure and track progress
• begun work to address microaggressions in the workplace

Next steps include: 

• building learning and development opportunities that are inclusive and accessible, focusing on developing all staff to contribute to Wellcome's strategy
• deeper analysis of our retention and internal moves data to understand the reasons for staff leaving 
• launching quarterly staff pulse surveys to better understand staff experience at Wellcome, which can be analysed on EDI characteristics