PensionBee squeezed gender pay gap down to 1.6% last year

Online pension provider PensionBee voluntarily released its gender pay gap figures again this year to reveal a just 1.6 per cent median gap.

It also revealed the median bonus pay gap remained at 0 per cent among staff as of 31 December 2021.

The figures come as part of the company’s commitment to wage equality, “in recognition that where a pay gap exists for women, a pension gap will follow” and shows an improvement from an already low 4 per cent hourly pay gap in 2020.

As a member of the Women in Finance Charter, a commitment by HM Treasury and more than 330 signatory firms to achieve gender balance across financial services, PensionBee says it has “achieved complete gender parity at a company-wide level”.

It also says it actively recruits women to “traditionally male-dominated positions, such as technology roles”.

“The gender pay gap is almost exclusively framed as an issue women should be solving themselves,” CEO of PensionBee CEO Romi Savova said.

“The message I consistently hear is that women need to do more, however, placing the burden on the recipient of the problem is neither effective nor fair.”

The company has a pension gap target of 0 per cent, with a variance of +/- 5 per cent due to the overall size of the employee base.

“At PensionBee, we passionately believe that men and women should be paid equally for equal work and have found from our own research that this is the only effective solution to eradicate the gender pension gap once and for all,” Savova added.

“That’s why we have committed to voluntarily tracking these figures as early as possible, so if necessary, changes are easier to make.”

Since 2017, companies with more than 250 UK employees are required to report the gender pay gap, the difference between the average (mean or median) earnings of men and women across their workforce on a given date.

Companies with fewer than 250 employees can choose to voluntarily publish this information but are not legally required to.

Earlier this month, larger companies had their gender pay gaps revealed, including a range of digital banks, such as Revolut,Monzo and Starling Bank.

Other pension providers with more than 250 employees also publicly shared their mean and median hourly pay and bonus gaps.

Hargreaves Lansdown revealed the greatest bonus pay gap disparity with 43.7 per cent and an hourly pay difference of 14.5 per cent. 

Smart Pension showed an even higher hourly pay gap of 36 per cent.

Although Smart’s bonus difference was far better at just 7 per cent, PensionBee is clearly significantly further ahead in solving its gender pay gap, at least for the time being.