University of Worcester Tops Table for Gender Pay Equality in English Universities

Women make up 65% of Worcester's overall staff and are represented at this level throughout the University. In the top quartile, 64.14% of staff are women, while in the lowest quartile, 65.6% of staff are women. This contrasts strongly with the vast majority of universities where women are significantly under-represented amongst higher paid staff and over-represented amongst the lower-paid. At Worcester, women are neither under-represented at the top nor over-represented at the bottom.

Women are also fairly represented in the centre of the pay range. In the upper middle quartile women make up 63.22% of staff, and in the lower middle quartile women make up 66.97%.

Worcester has the smallest average pay gap of any university to publish so far, at 3.16%. At Cambridge the average Gender Pay Gap is six times higher than at Worcester at 19.5%, whilst at Oxford it is 8 times higher, at 24.5% and at the University of Birmingham it is 19.9%.

Worcester's average pay gap would disappear if just 4 jobs of the top 435 were filled by women instead of men.

As for "bonus pay", which is particularly unequal in such organisations as City law firms and consultancies with gender pay gaps at 80% and more, at Worcester women received 11.5% more in bonus pay than men.

Commenting on the results, Professor David Green, the University's Vice Chancellor and Chief Executive said: "At the University of Worcester we are passionately committed to inclusion and the promotion of gender equality. Our whole University approach includes supporting centres of academic study such as our long running the Centre for Violence Prevention as well as practical initiatives such as carefully monitoring the University's promotion schemes for the past dozen years to ensure that they operate fairly."

He added: "Women have been 50% or more of the executive leadership group at the University for more than 20 years. In the 1990s, outstanding work was done by my predecessor, Dorma Urwin OBE, in promoting equality and diversity in general. This work has been strongly carried forward by women and men at the University ever since. It is this hard work and commitment right through the University which has led to the situation where the University is widely regarded as one of Britain's fairest, most inclusive and most welcoming.

"Everyone at Worcester is proud of the University's role as an engine of opportunity and inclusion. But there is still a great deal to do and a world to win.

"The University is an outstanding educator of nurses, teachers, midwives and early years educators. These professions are very largely female. Each of these professions is grossly discriminated against when it comes to pay. Early Years graduates, who have earned a specific graduate qualification to work professionally with young children, are still not classified as working in a graduate profession by the Office for National Statistics.

"The University of Worcester is in the top 10 of all UK universities for sustained employment over 1, 3 and 5 years. Our graduates are snapped up but despite this, gender pay discrimination strikes our graduates hard and we will continue to campaign against this ongoing injustice."