Gender Pay Gap 2021

January 1, 2022

Splash Damage

“I am delighted to see that we’ve made significant progress this year. We continue to bring more women into our studio, and representation has increased in every quartile compared to our last report. As a result, our Gender Pay Gap has noticeably reduced compared to last year’s report, while our Bonus Pay Gap is now in favour of women for the first time.

While our work from previous years is now starting to pay off, our journey is far from over. Our biggest challenge remains not having enough women in senior leadership positions, and addressing this will continue to be a focus for us going forward.”

Richard Jolly, CEO

What is the Gender Pay Gap Report?

Enacted in 2017, the UK Government’s Gender Pay Gap (GPG) reporting legislation is an amendment to the Equality Act 2010 and requires employers of over 250 people to report:

The proportion of men and women in each pay quartile
The Mean and Median gender pay gap in hourly pay
The Mean and Median bonus gender pay gap, and the proportion of men and women receiving a bonus payment

This is different from the wider terms of the Equality Act which ensures parity in pay for men and women in the same role.

The data in this report is based on a snapshot from 5 April 2021 and any bonus pay received in the 12 months before this date.

The Landscape

The gender pay gap in the UK has been steadily reducing in the last 10 years but is still in favour of men. We continue to keep an eye on the wider games industry, and are in the process of analysing this year’s UK Games Industry Census to understand whether there are any learnings we can take from it.

It’s important to note that the gender pay gap report requires us to report on binary data, meaning that 3% of our employees, who do not identify as either men or women, will not be reported on here.

Our Results

You can take a look at our previous reports here:

Our median gender pay gap is now 19.9%, which is lower than the previous reporting period. Our mean gender pay gap is 21.1%, also lower from the same report.

Our gender representation in the reportable data is 82.7% men, and 17.3% women.

Pay Quartiles

Quartiles are calculated by first listing the rates of pay for each employee across the business from lowest to highest, and then splitting that list into four equal-sized groups, then calculating the percentage of men and women in each of these groups.

Mean & Median Pay Gap

The mean pay gap compares the average pay for women with the average pay for men. The median hourly rate is calculated by ranking all employees from the highest paid to the lowest paid, and taking the hourly wage of the person in the middle. The median gender pay gap is the difference between women’s median hourly wage (the middle-paid woman) and men’s median hourly wage (the middle-paid man).

Our median gender pay gap is 19.9%. Our mean gender pay gap is 21.1%.

When comparing mean hourly rates, women earn 78.7p for every £1 men earn

When comparing median hourly rates, women earn 79p for every £1 men earn

To be clear, Splash Damage does not have a disparity for men and women performing the same job role. Men and women at Splash Damage are being paid equally for equivalent roles. The large proportion of men in the upper quartiles is the main cause of this pay gap.

Bonuses

70.7% of men received bonus pay during this reporting period, compared to 66.7% of women. Our median bonus gap is 0%, and as for the mean bonus gap, it is 13.5% in favour of women

Learnings

While we are glad to see progress with our data this year, this also does not mean the problem is solved, and we continue our hard work towards improving Splash Damage.

It’s worth noting that our approach to Diversity and Inclusion at the studio is intersectional, and so when we are looking at improving Splash Damage, we will always look at improving it for everyone.

There are some key questions which are asking ourselves as our studio grows, to continue progressing:

How can we recruit more marginalised people at the leadership level?
How can we ensure that our progressive processes are flexible for growth and sustainable for the long-term?
How can we help future generations of marginalised people see the games industry as a path for them?