The charts below show the split by gender and ethnicity when we order hourly rates of pay from highest to lowest and group into four equal quartiles.

The proportion of women in the upper quartile has improved since last year (34.8% from 31.9% a year ago); while at the same time the proportion of staff in the lowest paying quartile has become more equitable, with women accounting for 50.6% of this cohort, compared to 53.6% 12 months ago.

There has also been an upward shift in the proportion of women in the upper-middle quartile to 49.1% from 48.1% in 2022. In terms of the lower-middle quartile, there is only a minor change in the proportion of women (51.8% compared to 50.4% a year ago). This is reflected in the decrease in the median pay gap as the median pay gap is more closely related to the distribution of roles within the male and female cohort.

For academic staff, there remains a pay gap overall. Across all Academic grades, some gaps are negative in favour of women. In terms of numbers, however, little progress has been made in increasing the number of women in senior academic posts – the percentage of female professors has risen very slightly, from 17.6% to 18.1%.

For learning and teaching staff, the proportion of female staff accounts for over half the sample across all grades, at 52.4%. This is a significantly higher representation for this group of staff when compared to representation across Imperial's population as a whole, where female staff account for 46.6% of staff. The gender pay gap is zero for this staff grade, which is a significant improvement compared to last year, when the gap stood at 4%.

For the research grade, the proportion of female staff is currently 39.1%, which is an under-representation compared to female representation across Imperial's population as a whole. However, as with learning and teaching staff, there is no pay gap for this staff overall.

For professional, technical, and operational grades, the proportion of women in level 7 has increased by 10.9 percentage points since last year while at the same time, the proportion of women in the lowest paying grade 1a has fallen by 8.3 percentage points. These factors have contributed to a reduction in the overall gender pay gaps.

After a fall last year, the proportion of white employees in the upper quartile has risen slightly (from 68.5% to 72%). There has also been a corresponding small decrease in the proportion of BAME staff (from 18.5% in 2022 to 18.3% in 2023), and a decrease in those whose ethnicity is unknown or unstated. There has been a slight decrease in the proportion of BAME staff in Professor, Reader and Lecturer roles compared to white employees. Mean pay gaps are in favour of BAME staff for all 4 key academic grades.