Ethnicity pay gap report 2020 What the findings tell us

The second publication on the general ethnicity pay gap in the UK (UKEPG) was made in October 2020 by the ONS, reporting on the year ending 2019. This uses the Annual Population Survey to calculate the difference between the median gross hourly earnings of employees. In 2019 the pay gap between BAME and White employees was 2.3%.

Based on Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data, Advance HE include information on the ethnicity pay gap in their annual statistical report. The median higher education ethnicity pay gap in 2018-2019 was 0.0%, and the mean higher education ethnicity pay gap in 2018-2019 was 2%. In Scotland, in 2018-2019, the median ethnicity pay gap was -12.5% and the mean ethnicity pay gap was -6.8%.

The University has analysed the ethnicity pay gap by contract types and grade to provide a more granular overview of the data. However, as this analysis contains groups with headcounts of less than five, the data is unsuitable for publishing.

The figures identify a mean ethnicity pay gap of 5.6% and a median ethnicity pay gap of -5.2%. The University’s mean ethnicity pay gap, has remained relatively stagnant (increased 0.1% since 2019) and is higher than the UK higher education average (by 3.6 percentage points). The median ethnicity pay gap at St Andrews University (-5.2) represents a 3.8 percentage point decrease from -9.0% in 2019.

The University will continue to work to understand and address our mean ethnicity pay gap.