Our Gender Pay Gap Findings
There are four factors which explain our year-on-year results and these factors mean that in the short term, our results may change either way, but that in the longer term, we expect to see the gender pay gap close at Shell in the UK.
We continue to make progress towards gender balance. However, we still have a gender pay gap. We are encouraged by the positive movement of our gender pay gap, but we continue to strive to increase the representation of women at the seniority levels and across our businesses and functions in the UK where we have identified that women are under-represented to increase the pace of change. We are improving our policies and practices in the UK and are taking a targeted approach to recruitment and development in the business areas where we face the greatest challenges.
Whilst men and women are paid the same salary for equivalent levels of work, Shell in the UK does still have a gender pay gap and the reasons for this are:
1. More men than women in senior positions
2. Organisational change and our global approach to developing talent
3. Women are under-represented in some specialist roles
4. The way bonuses are calculated in some of our businesses
More men than women in senior positions
There are almost three times as many men than women in the upper and upper middle pay quartiles. This is because, in the past, our industry has employed significantly more men than women, and there have been low levels of staff turnover at Shell in the UK. We continue to modernise our policies and support our employees to manage and develop in their careers, coupled with a focus on recruiting from an expanded diverse talent pool. This has led to an increase in the number of women in senior positions throughout the organisation. The percentage of female senior leaders in the UK has more than doubled from 12% in 2005 to 31.8% by the first quarter of 2021. Although we reached our 2020 UK ambition of 30% female senior leadership representation two years early (in 2018), there is still some way to go towards achieving our global aspirations of 35% female senior leader representation by the end of 2025 and 40% by 2030 as set out in our Powering Lives D&I commitments.
Equal pay vs gender pay gap
We are confident we pay men and women equally for work of equal value. We conduct regular analyses to ensure this is the case and engage openly with our employees on the mechanisms we have in place to ensure non-discriminatory pay practices.
We do have a gender pay gap, which is different. That is the difference in the average pay and bonuses of all men and all women across an organisation.
