Ethnicity pay gap report 2019 What the findings tell us

The first publication on the general ethnicity pay gap in the UK (UKEPG) was made in July 2019 by the ONS, reporting on the year ending 2018. This uses the Annual Population Survey to calculate the difference between the median gross hourly earnings of employees. In 2018 the pay gap between BAME and White employees was 3.8%.

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 2017-2018 was 0.7%, and the mean higher education ethnicity pay gap in 2017-2018 was 2%. In Scotland, in 2017-2018, the median ethnicity pay gap was -15.9% and the mean ethnicity pay gap was -9.6%.

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 5.5% and a median ethnicity pay gap of -9.0%. The University’s mean ethnicity pay gap is higher than the UK higher education average (by 3 percentage points).

The median ethnicity pay gap at St Andrews University (-9.0%) represents a gap in the opposite direction to that recorded in UK nationwide.

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