FCDO 2024 gender pay gap report
Published 17 December 2024
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Executive summary
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has prepared this report as part of the legal requirement for public authorities to publish their gender pay gap on an annual basis.
The FCDO continues to see a Gender Pay Gap (GPG) although we have made positive progress in the last year in all measures.
Since 2023 there has been the following changes in the FCDO’s GPG:
- the mean GPG has decreased from 4.0% to 2.5%
- the median GPG has decreased from 8.7% to 2.7%
- the mean bonus GPG has decreased from 16.0% to 9.1%
- the median bonus GPG has decreased from 22.9% to 0.0%
Although there is still work to be done, the FCDO continues to compare favourably across Whitehall with the second lowest mean GPG and third lowest median GPG – Civil Service average is 7.4% mean and 8.5% median. The FCDO is also well below average Civil Service bonus GPG at 25.7% mean and 22.4% median.
The main drivers in the reduction of the GPG this year have been increased representation of women across the middle and senior grades, shortening pay scales and targeting the pay deal to mitigate cost of living pressures more for our lower paid staff, where representation of women is higher. There continues to be a larger GPG for part-time workers, due to the increased rate of women who have this working pattern.
The reduction in the mean bonus gap is mostly attributable to a higher proportion of staff receiving bonus pay in the FCDO in 2023 to 2024 compared to the year before (while still one of the lowest in Whitehall), and the difference between men and women receiving a bonus decreased from 5 percentage points to 2.8 percentage points. The median bonus GPG has reduced to zero due to the grade neutral approach to performance related pay in 2023 to 2024 by exception due to cost of living pressures.
This report outlines actions we are taking in the FCDO to continue to reduce the GPG, including an effort to increase women in the Senior Civil Service (SCS), investing in our talent, and continued alignment of HR policies.
1. Introduction
In 2017, the Government introduced legislation that made it statutory for organisations with 250 or more employees to report annually on their Gender Pay Gap. Government departments are covered by the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017, which underpin the Public Sector Equality Duty and require relevant organisations to publish their gender pay gap annually by 30 March. This includes:
- the mean and median gender pay gaps
- the mean and median gender bonus gaps
- the proportion of men and women who received bonuses
- the proportions of men and women in each pay quartile
This report fulfils the FCDO’s reporting requirements, analyses the figures in more detail, sets out our progress to date and what we are doing to close the gender pay gap in our organisation. The reporting period is 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024, and relates to policies under the previous Conservative Government.
Organisational context
This is our fourth Gender Pay Gap report as the FCDO.
The FCDO is governed by the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 2022 to 2025, which focusses on attracting talent from all backgrounds, investing in our people capabilities and driving a performance culture that delivers improved outcomes for our citizens. The FCDO aims to create a workplace where employees from various backgrounds feel valued, respected and empowered.
The FCDO uses an outcome-focused and data-driven approach to diversity and inclusion. This directs focus on key priorities and targets interventions on building an inclusive work culture. We are bound by Public Sector Equality Duty to eliminate unlawful discrimination; advance equality of opportunity; and foster good relations between those who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. Greater transparency and accountability are key to enable organisations to demonstrate their commitment to equality, attracting talent and boosting staff engagement.
The FCDO aspires to represent the country we serve, as such we aim for our workforce to match the UK Economically Active Population (50% women). A key tool to help us address the gender pay gap will be to increase levels of women in the senior civil Service. As of 31 March 2024, women comprise 51.6% of the organisation, however at SCS (Senior Civil Servants) women only comprise 45.8%. This figure is increasing each year and we can see a direct correlation in greater levels of senior women and the reduction of our GPG.
Our headcount has increased over the last financial year to enable us to deliver the FCDO’s global commitments and priorities. The FCDO, along with all other government departments, is facing a challenging fiscal situation which has resulted in the introduction of temporary workforce controls. This has meant fewer promotion opportunities for all grades, which could slow down progress in increasing representation in the senior grades. We remain fully committed to our diversity action plan and to reducing the GPG. These are long term goals which will require sustained attention and effort.
This report includes data for all FCDO staff, including employees from our Trading Fund (FCDO Services) and Executive Agency (Wilton Park). In line with statutory requirements, this report includes staff defined as UK-based employees who are on FCDO payroll. The report does not include data for Country Based Staff (employees who are locally employed at Posts overseas).
The following gender pay gap statistics have not included the additional non-consolidated one-off payments made to civil servants in 2023. The payments were not considered to fall within the scope of pay for the purpose of calculations and in any event were made outside the relevant pay period of March 2024 for the main pay gap statistics and are therefore excluded from those calculations. The payment has also been excluded from the bonus pay gap statistics as the payment was not by way of a bonus for these purposes and to treat it as such would serve to mask the true underlying bonus pay gap figures for 2023 to 2024.
Figure 1: FCDO gender split by organisation
| Organisation | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|
| FCDO (excluding agencies) | 48.4% | 51.6% |
| FCDO Services | 68.7% | 31.3% |
| Wilton Park | 25.8% | 74.2% |
| All staff | 50.7% | 49.3% |
Most of the FCDO’s employees are below SCS level. There is a higher proportion of women in junior grades, and this generally decreases as seniority rises, however there has been an increase in representation of women in all grades bar EO over the last year. The table below shows the distribution of men and women across the grades on 31 March 2024.
Figure 2: FCDO gender split by grade
| Grade | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|
| SCS | 54.2% | 45.8% |
| G7 and G6 | 50.4% | 49.6% |
| HEO and SEO | 51.2% | 48.8% |
| EO | 46.6% | 53.4% |
| AA and AO | 46.8% | 53.2% |
2. Gender pay gap report
The Gender Pay Gap (GPG) refers to the difference in average earnings between men and women in the workforce. For example, a GPG of 5% would indicate that the average hourly earnings of women are 5% lower than their male counterparts. This would mean for each £1 earned by a man, the average women’s earning would amount to 95p. If a workforce has a particularly high gender pay gap, this can indicate that there may be a number of issues to address.
The GPG is different to equal pay, which refers to men and women receiving equal pay for performing the same or similar work. It is unlawful to pay people unequally because they are a man or a woman.
The data shown in this report has been calculated according to the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017.
Figure 3: 2024 FCDO gender pay gap headline figures
| Reporting organisation | Mean pay gap | Median pay gap | Mean bonus gap | Median bonus gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FCDO (excluding agencies) | 3.4% | 5.9% | -0.1% | 0.0% |
| FCDO Services | 6.6% | 16.6% | 6.2% | 5.6% |
| Wilton Park | 14.9% | 2.8% | - | - |
| All staff | 2.5% | 2.7% | 9.1% | 0.0% |
Figure 4: Gender distribution through each pay quartile
| Pay quartile | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest pay quartile | 49.5% | 50.5% |
| Lower-middle pay quartile | 51.0% | 49.0% |
| Higher-middle pay quartile | 51.3% | 48.7% |
| Highest pay quartile | 53.8% | 46.2% |
Figure 5: Proportion of staff receiving a bonus in 2024
| Men | Women | |
|---|---|---|
| Received bonus | 48.1% | 45.3% |
| No bonus | 51.9% | 54.7% |
3. Analysis of pay gap
The rules governing SCS pay are determined within the SCS Pay Practitioners Guidance which is set by the Cabinet Office. For other grades, decisions around pay are delegated to departments, within the rules of the Civil Service Pay Remit Guidance, which is published annually.
Since the formation of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in September 2020 work has been underway to align terms and conditions and all HR policies from our legacy departments (Department for International Development and Foreign & Commonwealth Office), many of which would have an impact on the Gender Pay Gap.
The FCDO mean pay gap has reduced from 4.0% in 2022/2023 to 2.5% in 2023/2024, representing a decrease of 1.5 percentage points. The median pay gap has also seen a reduction to 2.7% in 2023 to 2024, representing a reduction of 6.0 percentage points from 2022 to 2023.
Figure 6: Gender pay gap trends since the formation of the FCDO
| 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean gender pay gap | 5.0% | 4.7% | 4.0% | 2.5% |
| Median gender pay gap | 9.8% | 9.1% | 8.7% | 2.7% |
Figure 7: Breakdown of gender pay gap by reporting organisation
| Reporting organisation | Mean 2020 to 2021 | Mean 2021 to 2022 | Mean 2022 to 2023 | Mean 2023 to 2024 | Median 2020 to 2021 | Median 2021 to 2022 | Median 2022 to 2023 | Median 2023 to 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FCDO (ex. agencies) | 6.7% | 6.4% | 4.9% | 3.4% | 15.2% | 12.4% | 11.6% | 5.9% | |
| FCDO Services | 8.6% | 6.0% | 7.4% | 6.6% | 20.1% | 15.4% | 18.1% | 16.6% | |
| Wilton Park | 0.6% | 10.2% | 21.5% | 14.9% | 18.5% | -1.0% | 6.4% | 2.8% |
The FCDO Gender Pay Gap continues to be mostly driven by a gender imbalance across the grades. As shown in the introduction, representation of women decreases as the grades increase in seniority. This is also represented in the distribution of women in the pay quartiles. To address the Gender Pay Gap our efforts are focused on increasing representation of women in the senior grades.
To mitigate against cost of living pressures in 2023, the FCDO used flexibility within the pay remit to award higher increases to staff in more junior grades. As shown in Figure 2, higher proportions of junior staff are women, therefore this change will have contributed to reducing the Gender Pay Gap. The 2023 Pay Deal also reduced the length of each pay scale by grade.
Figure 8: New FCDO pay scale for the delegated grades (increasing seniority)
| Grade | Minimum | Maximum | % increase at median of pay range |
|---|---|---|---|
| AO | £26,500 | £26,500 | 10.7% |
| EO | £28,000 | £30,500 | 9.3% |
| HEO | £34,500 | £40,000 | 7.3% |
| SEO | £42,500 | £48,000 | 6.2% |
| Grade 7 | £53,000 | £62,000 | 4.6% |
| Grade 6 | £64,000 | £74,000 | 3.8% |
The Gender Pay Gap is higher for FCDO staff who are working part-time. This is due to women, who have a lower average hourly rate in the FCDO, making up a larger share of our part-time staff (77.6% women, 22.4% men). It is unlikely that this gender split will change significantly over time and increased flexibility in working patterns can help more women take up senior roles. We will continue to monitor the impact of part-time working on the Gender Pay Gap.
Figure 9: Gender pay gap by working pattern
| Mean gender pay gap | Median gender pay gap | |
|---|---|---|
| Part-time | 8.1% | 9.5% |
| Full-time | 2.5% | 2.7% |
| FCDO overall | 2.5% | 2.7% |
4. Analysis of the bonus gap
As with pay, the bonus pay budget is set by pay remit guidance and the Executive Committee decides how this should be distributed amongst qualifying staff. Ordinarily performance related pay values in the FCDO differs by grade and performance rating. For example, a senior Grade 6 would get more performance related pay than a junior EO, even if they both received the same rating. As an exception in 2023, due to cost of living pressures, the FCDO took a grade neutral approach to bonus pay in order to provide more support to our junior staff. All staff who were rated ‘Exceeding’ received £1,800 and all rated ‘High Performing’ received £1,200, regardless of grade. This has had a positive impact on the Gender Bonus Gap this year, seeing the median gap drop to 0.0%; however, we can expect to see this rise again next year as the policy approach has reverted to be more proportionate to individual salaries and reflect the difference in performance.
Over the last reporting year, the FCDO mean bonus gap has reduced from 16.0% to 9.1%. This represents a decrease of 6.9 percentage points from 2023 and continues a downward trend since for formation of the FCDO. The median pay gap has reduced to 0.0%, which represents a decrease of 22.9 percentage points from 2023.
Figure 10: FCDO gender pay gap for bonus pay
| 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean gender bonus gap | 23.6% | 20.3% | 16.0% | 9.1% |
| Median gender bonus gap | 25.4% | 22.2% | 22.9% | 0.0% |
Figure 11: Breakdown of gender bonus gap by reporting organisation
| Reporting organisation | Mean 2020 to 2021 | Mean 2021 to 2022 | Mean 2022 to 2023 | Mean 2023 to 2024 | Median 2020 to 2021 | Median 2021 to 2022 | Median 2022 to 2023 | Median 2023 to 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FCDO (ex. agencies) | 13.9% | 12.9% | 12.5% | -0.1% | 6.7% | 6.7% | 10.0% | 0.0% |
| FCDO Services | 13.7% | 5.9% | 4.6% | 6.2% | 12.0% | 1.9% | 3.3% | 5.6% |
| Wilton Park [footnote 1] | - | - | - | 9.1% | - | - | - | 0.0% |
More staff in the FCDO received bonus pay in this year compared to the year before. In 2023 to 2024, 45.3% of women received bonus pay, 4.8 percentage points more than the previous year. A slightly higher proportion of men received bonus pay at 48.1%, 2.6 percentage points more than 2022 to 2023. Most notably, the difference in men and woman receiving bonus pay has reduced from 5 percentage points in 2022/2023 to 2.8 percentage points in 2023/2024, which will also have helped reduce the Gender Bonus Gap. The proportion of staff receiving bonuses in the FCDO is one of the lowest across Whitehall; in the Civil Service as a whole, 60.3% men and 65.1% of women received bonus pay.
Figure 12: Percentage of men and women receiving bonus pay
| 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Men | 58.4% | 45.5% | 48.1% |
| Women | 54.6% | 40.5% | 45.3% |
Consistent with the median Gender Pay Gap, there is a larger median gap in bonus pay for part-time staff at 5.7%. Performance pay is paid pro-rata, therefore if there is a gender imbalance in part-time workers there will also be an imbalance in bonus pay. In contrast to the median bonus gap for part-time staff, the mean bonus pay gap is negative at -3.6%, reflecting that women working part-time on average received higher bonus pay compared to men. This negative mean is driven by extreme values, however as a measure, this is less representative of the majority. In 2023 to 2024, women in the FCDO who worked part-time were less likely to receive bonus pay than men who worked part-time. We will continue to explore this over the coming year with an aim to reduce this difference.
Figure 13: Percentage of men and women receiving bonus pay by working pattern
| Men | Women | |
|---|---|---|
| Part-time | 60.0% | 44.6% |
| Full-time | 48.5% | 46.4% |
| FDCO overall | 48.1% | 45.3% |
5. Targeted action to reduce and close the gender pay gap
The FCDO is committed to closing the Gender Pay Gap. Since the last Gender Pay Gap report there has been a range of progress in aligning HR policies from our legacy departments, we are also focused on increasing rates of women in the SCS. These actions will contribute to closing the gender pay gap and will continue throughout the coming years.
Increasing representation of women in the SCS
FCDO senior leadership take a close interest in diversity outcomes throughout the employee lifecycle and how we can close the Gender Pay Gap. We are tracking trends on senior recruitment, for example, we often see lower rates of women applying for senior positions, but they are usually more successful at securing a role, so we are trying to understand the drivers for this. Recruitment decisions for senior roles, especially those overseas, can take time to be reflected in representation and GPG figures. Driven by FCDO’s senior leaders we are pushing the boundaries on flexible working, especially in the senior grades and in areas where flexible working has historically been rejected – though we will need to be mindful of the potential impact on the Gender Pay Gap if there is an increase of senior women working part time. This should enable greater diversity in these roles and looking at role model work. Work is also underway on talent management of the SCS to retain existing talent within the FCDO.
Terms and conditions alignment
The FCDO is prioritising remaining alignment issues resulting from the creation of the FCDO in 2020. We have made significant progress in aligning location allowances, shortening pay ranges and reducing discrepancies within pay ranges. As an employer, we want to be a leader with forward-looking policies and terms and conditions that enable our delivery and reflect our dynamic global environment. Our employment offer must be attractive to staff and provide good value for money for the taxpayer. The right policies and allowances must also support our operating model and help us deliver our strategic priorities. Recent pay awards have built a solid foundation to look pay progression more strategically in future pay settlements. A programme of work looking at the Overseas Employment Framework is reaching the final stages, one of the aims of which is ensuring fairness which reflects the challenges of modern families being posted overseas. All of which should, over time, improve gender pay gaps.
Performance and development
FCDO’s Performance and Development process are designed to ensure that everyone performs at their best, realises their full potential and contributes positively to the FCDO’s objectives to help deliver our organisational mission and purpose. Performance is affected by an individual’s motivation, capability, sense of inclusion and their line manager’s ability to understand an employee’s strengths, maximise their contribution and support their development. We continue to review the new approach launched in 2022, gathering feedback from individuals and Staff Networks, and conducting diversity analysis to understand the outcomes by characteristics to inform future changes to our approach. These decisions will impact on the GPG on bonus pay.
Talent and capability
The FCDO will continue to invest in better organisational insight on the capabilities and skills of those in the pipeline to SCS and to help tailor support. This will enable us to identify the small number of individuals who are likely to be ready for the SCS within the next five years and offer support in building the right future leadership capabilities for the organisation. As work on the Capability Framework continues to mature, we will use insight from the SCS Talent Pipeline Approach to map where additional capability-focused interventions may be needed. Identifying our talent pipeline supports our inclusion commitments by providing access to targeted additional resources, such as mentoring and sponsorship, to those with protected characteristics which will help us in our ambition for representation of women and other protected groups in the senior grades.
Behaviours and culture
The FCDO is fully committed to ensuring a safe and inclusive work environment for all. Our Dignity and Respect at Work policy is now well established, focused on building a positive working environment, understanding of what constitutes bullying, harassment and discrimination (BHD) and preventing it including through increased awareness of how to report and address concerns. This work goes hand in hand with our clear commitments on safeguarding against sexual exploitation and abuse and harassment (SEAH), both in our development and diplomacy work, but also to our staff which often impacts women disproportionately. As our priorities shift to deliver for the new government, we will continue to build the culture we want to see across the FCDO. The more all staff feel comfortable and welcome in the FCDO, the more we can help women to progress in the organisation.
Trade unions and staff networks
The FCDO’s Trade Union Side and Staff Networks are valuable assets. They provide a strong community of support to their members and amplify the experiences of their members from a diverse range of groups to ensure senior leaders and HR hear their voice. Strong employee voice helps ensure FCDO’s people policies and systems are informed by insights on how different groups of staff are affected and where solutions can be found for challenges. In addition to meeting our statutory obligations of collective bargaining with recognised trade unions and Public Sector Equality Duties, we continue to facilitate engagement with Staff Networks on upcoming people policies to help us consider equality implications during policy development.
6. Declaration
I confirm that data reported by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development office is accurate and has been calculated according to the requirements and methodology set out in the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017.
Corin Robertson, Director General, Finance & Corporate
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Bonus data for Wilton Park is supressed due to low numbers of staff ↩