Key findings – Gender Pay & Bonus Gap

The gender pay gap is the difference in the average pay and bonuses of all men and all women across the organisation. Although we are confident that we have equal pay for the same roles, we do have a gender pay gap when we compare the overall average pay and bonuses for women and men. This gap is because of the unequal distribution of men and women across the company, not because of our pay policies and practices.

Men have traditionally dominated the engineering sector, and this is reflected at RS Connect, where 79% of our UK employees are male and 21% female. This pattern is even more prominent when we look at installation engineers, where 98% are male and 2% female.

Our installation engineering roles are qualified auto electricians who typically command a higher wage than staff across the rest of the business, this structural difference has driven the median gender pay gap in favour of males.

However, the gender pay gap is reversed in favour of females when considering the mean pay gap. This is down to RS Connect being more gender balanced at senior management level, creating a proportionally larger number of females in higher paid positions.

Actions and Objectives

The under-representation of women in engineering roles has led us to develop a future recruitment plan focused on bringing more females into these roles, through our own in-house apprentice training. We aim to challenge the stereotype that engineering is a male dominated industry by empowering, training and supporting women to choose an engineering career with RS Connect.

We will aim to increase women’s representation in all areas of the company including a senior and board level, and we are updating our policies, training and recruitment strategy in order to ensure a gender-neutral approach and prevent unconscious bias.

The Data