Gender Pay Gap 2022

April 5, 2023

“I’m encouraged by the progress we’ve made in reducing the gender pay gap, as our proactive efforts have resulted in more women taking on middle and upper-quartile roles over the last three years.

Although this report requires us to specifically focus on men and women, we firmly believe Splash Damage must go beyond this and be a welcoming environment for people of all gender identities and backgrounds.

We know there’s still work to do. We’ll keep recruiting and developing talented people of all gender identities and backgrounds, with a particular focus on technical and senior roles. This will help us build a more balanced workforce, and in turn, contribute to closing the gender pay gap and boosting representation in leadership at Splash, and throughout the industry.”

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 2022 and any bonus pay received in the 12 months before this date.

It’s important to note that the gender pay gap report requires us to report on binary data, meaning that 3.8% of our employees, who do not identify as either men or women, are not reported on here.

Our Results

You can take a look at our previous reports here:

Our median gender pay gap is now 18.06%, which is lower than the previous reporting period. Our mean gender pay gap is 23.63%, which is higher than last year.

Our gender representation in the reportable data is 82.7% men, and 17.3% women, which is consistent with last year’s report.

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 18.06%. Our mean gender pay gap is 23.63%.

When comparing mean hourly rates, women earn 76.37p for every £1 men earn.

When comparing median hourly rates, women earn 81.94p for every £1 men earn.

To be clear, Splash Damage does not have a disparity between 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

93.81% of men received bonus pay during this reporting period, compared to 91.8% of women. In terms of the amount paid in bonuses, our median bonus gap is 1.36% in favour of women, and as for the mean bonus gap, it is 26.44%.

Learnings

We’ve seen progress this year – across our higher quartiles we now have more women.

However, this year also shows we need to continue focusing on closing the gap. Seeing one gap get smaller and the other lengthen shows that we need to prioritise hiring and developing people who identify as women.

Our intersectional approach to diversity and inclusion means we will always look to improve equity across the board – it’s what the brilliant people in our studio deserve.

Leadership is a key area where we know we must improve. Representation at the top really matters and can send powerful signals to the rest of the organisation.

This year we’re hiring a talent development manager who will look at progressing our top talent into leadership. They’ll be looking at how we recruit people of marginalised backgrounds and women, and how we make sure they are set up for success at Splash. Critically, we will also investigate how we can help supercharge their progression to help us achieve our strategic goal of diverse representation at all levels of the organisation.

We continue to support our Employee Resource Groups to champion identities across the business. Our Women at Splash Damage group specifically are focusing on “asking the tough questions” this year.

In the longer term, we’re working with local schools to show children that they can have a career in games. The more girls we can encourage to make their hobby into a career, makes for more women who will be the leaders of games companies in the future.