Pay gap report 2025
Meaningful action is delivering results. Since 2023, we've reduced our mean gender pay gap by 5.3 percentage points and our median by 5.5 points, progress we're genuinely proud of.
Kiran Trehan, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Enterprise, Partnerships and Engagement
We know that despite our best intentions, our pay gaps have remained stubbornly resistant to change for more than eight years, moving by fractions of percentage points. Now, meaningful action is delivering results.
We could have continued with incremental adjustments, hoping that time alone would deliver equity.
Instead, we chose a different path: one rooted in rigorous analysis.
We’d like to acknowledge the Pay Gaps Working Group, whose insight has proven transformative. Together, we moved beyond treating symptoms and focused on addressing root causes.
Implementing targeted strategies
We have examined our recruitment patterns, scrutinised our promotion processes, and ensured our casual workforce – who are disproportionately female – receives fair treatment.
We are genuinely encouraged by what the results tell us now.
Since 2023, our mean gender pay gap has reduced by 5.3 percentage points and our median gap by 5.5 points. This acceleration is significant: in the previous years, these figures shifted by only a small margin.
The advancement on ethnicity pay gaps is particularly heartening.
We’ve seen substantial reductions for both Asian colleagues – down to 6.23% mean and 2.82% median – and Black colleagues, where the median gap has fallen to 10.80%.
Behind each percentage point are colleagues whose contributions are now more recognised, whose career pathways are opening, and whose belonging at the University of York is strengthened.
Looking ahead, we will build on this. We are committed to meaningful progress, ensuring that improvements are not only achieved but sustained.
For 2025, the mean gap was 13.8% including casual staff and 12.5% excluding casual staff. The median gap was 13.1% including casual staff and 10.3% excluding casual staff.
This follows a general downwards trend for all four gap categories since 2020.
Signatories
- Professor Charlie Jeffrey, Vice Chancellor
- Professor Kiran Trehan, Pro Vice Chancellor for Enterprise, Partnerships and Engagement
- Helen Selvidge, Assistant HR Director
- Louise Abrahams, Reward Manager
Left to right: Kiran Trehan, Louise Abrahams, Charlie Jeffrey