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Gender pay gap reporting

Find out about gender pay gap information for the Trust.

What is gender pay gap reporting?

This is the sixth year we have reported on our gender pay gap. Gender pay gap reporting is not the same as paying men and women equally for doing like-for-like work – our Pay and Grading review in early 2018 means we are confident that we do this – but instead looks at the distribution of men and women through all pay levels of the organisation, the hours they work, and the effect this has on average hourly rates of pay. This report is a snapshot of our pay and gender as of 5 April 2022. This ‘lag’ in reporting time (we don’t report on 2022 until April 2023) is consistent with government requirements.

Why is this important?

It’s important that we have a diverse workforce that brings a wide range of skills, experience and knowledge to our work. We want to encourage a balance of men and women in the workplace and consider new attitudes to work that many people have – for example: part-time vs full-time working, career plans, secondments or career breaks. When we recruit new employees, we always look for the best candidate for the job – irrespective of gender – but we are careful that our process for defining job structure and hours of work does not favour either men or women.

What are we asked to look at?

For gender pay gap reporting we’re asked to look at:

  • The difference (as a percentage) between the average pay men and women receive (the ‘mean gender pay gap’)
  • The difference (as a percentage) between the median pay men and women receive (the mid-point of the individual pay rates in the organisation – the ‘median gender pay gap’)
  • The balance of men and women across our employees overall, and in four equal-sized groups when ranked by pay (‘quartiles’)

Employers are asked to do separate calculations in terms of ‘ordinary’ pay (which includes allowances, some of which do not apply to everyone), and ‘bonus’ pay. Because we do not offer bonuses, we only report on ‘ordinary’ pay.

Key findings

Our mean gender pay gap is: 10.4%

The average hourly rate paid to women is 10.4% less than men. Last year, this figure was 7.6%, meaning the mean gender pay gap has increased by 2.8% in the last year.

Our median gender pay gap is: 11.8%

The median hourly rate paid to women is 11.8% less than men. Last year, the gap was 7.9%, so the median gender pay gap has increased by 3.9%. As noted below, the median gender pay gap for all employees in Scotland in 2022, as reported by the Scottish Government, was 12.2%.

The median is generally used to compare the gender pay gap because the distribution of earnings is uneven, with more people earning lower salaries than higher salaries. The mean is highly influenced by the salaries at the upper end of a pay scale and so may not be truly representative of the average earnings of a typical person. The median avoids this issue and so is considered a better indicator of typical ‘average’ earnings.

The provisional Scottish median gender pay gap for all employees (part-time and full-time) in 2022 is 12.2%, and for the UK as a whole is 14.9%. [1]

[1] Figures taken from Scottish Government Annual survey of hours and earnings: 2022, Chart 4

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic

The impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the National Trust for Scotland in terms of our gender pay gap report was noticeable in last year’s report, as the lockdown over Christmas 2020 into spring 2021 curtailed almost all recruitment until late spring/early summer. We are now returning to a level of normality, where the Trust will recruit significantly higher numbers of staff in early spring, mostly at entry level pay. For example:

  • In April 2021 we had 580 employees; in April 2022 this was 909 – an increase of 56.7%.
  • In April 2021 there were 123 employees on the entry level pay; in April 2022 there were 391 – an increase of 217.9%.

This increase in numbers is a reflection of the return to normal levels of staffing at the Trust.

Our pay quartiles

Our overall employee mix is 61.3% women, 38.7% men. There has been an increase in the percentage of women compared to 2021 (56.6% women, 43.4% men).

Swipe to view table

Quartile2022 data2021 data2020 dataMovement from 2021
LowerMen 30%


Women 70%

Men 31.7%

Women 68.3%
Men 31.6%

Women 68.4%
Very slight decrease
in % of men
Lower-MiddleMen 36.1%

Women 63.9%
Men 46.9%

Women 53.1%
Men 36.4%

Women 63.6%
Large decrease
in % of men
Upper-MiddleMen 48%

Women 52%
Men 48.3%

Women 51.7%
Men 41.2%

Women 58.8%
Very slight decrease
in % of men
UpperMen 48%


Women 52%

Men 46.9%

Women 53.1%
Men 50.9%

Women 49.1%
Very slight decrease
in % of women

Why do we have a pay gap?

The main reasons we have a gender pay gap are:

  • We have more women working than men.
  • The women tend to be in roles in the lower quartiles of our pay brackets (71% of people earning at our entry rate pay point are women).
  • There are proportionally more part-time jobs in our lower pay brackets, which are societally still more likely to be filled by women. The gender balance for full-time roles is 48.3% men, 51.7% women (in 2021 it was 50.6% male, 49.4% women); for part-time it is 27.4% men, 72.6% women (in 2021 this was 27.4% men, 72.6% women).

What are we doing to encourage gender balance in the workplace?

  • Most of our lower-paid roles are property-based and part-time/part-year. Whilst rates of pay do not vary whether an employee is part-time/part-year, this type of working may have appealed in the past more to women than men.
  • Increasing numbers of our properties are open for longer ‘seasons’, with the potential consequence of attracting employees looking for year-round employment. In turn, this may see a more balanced workforce of women and men, with the consequence of addressing the lower quartile challenges.
  • We introduced a new pay model in early 2018 which gives more clarity about how jobs are sized for pay, and more flexibility for managers to recruit against market conditions and progress pay on the delivery of objectives and corporate behaviours. To ensure that gender inequality does not become a factor in this new pay model, a robust governance structure has been introduced that includes monitoring of pay on entry and pay progression against gender, and senior sign-off for non-standard rates or amounts. A revised job evaluation process was included in the development of the pay model, which ensures all jobs are evaluated objectively.
  • The impacts of this pay model can be seen in the gender pay gap report: in 2020 we had 193 pay points over 912 employees; in 2021 there were 185 separate pay points over 580 employees; and in 2022 we have 205 pay points over 909 employees.
  • Our salary negotiation is carried out on a corporate basis with our trade union, rather than an individual basis. All our salary points are published on our intranet and are visible to all our employees. The relevant salary points are included in job adverts.
  • We have a structured interview process for all our vacancies, using a competency-based framework focused on our corporate values. We also anonymise our applications to guard against any unconscious bias from recruiting managers.
  • There are many training interventions designed to support recruiting line managers, as they’re required to make recruitment decisions based on suitability for the job against the stated job criteria (as opposed to gender or any other protected characteristic). These include mandatory online learning modules on Unconscious Bias and Equality & Diversity and refreshed face-to-face recruitment training for managers who have not attended such a module within the six months prior to recruitment interviews.
  • Our Workforce Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Consultant has developed new policy and guidance documentation for supporting colleagues who are experiencing intense menopause and other hormonal change symptoms. This will help us to support colleagues at all levels of the organisation and demonstrates our investment in our workforce so that they can flourish in their roles.
    - In the coming year, we hope to review other policies and guidance with a Gender Working Group, which will look to update and refresh our procedures so that we support everyone to deliver their roles effectively, whilst supporting their wellbeing, personal lives and desire for professional development.
  • We have appointed a new Lead Consultant – Career Pathways to explore the best way to open and promote career paths for both young people and career changers. This will also highlight to existing colleagues the potential routes available for their career development within the National Trust for Scotland. We recognise that in the modern world of work, many individuals will develop their careers within several workplaces during their working lives. However, the People team want to ensure that the Trust is an attractive place for future talent for both career starters and career changers.
  • We continue to operate our family-friendly policies to support individuals who wish to blend family or caring responsibilities with work. Our Flexible Working policy makes sure that decisions about the granting of different ways of working (for example compressed hours, or moving to part-time) are based on business needs and not on factors such as gender (or other protected characteristics). The uptake of Flexible Working will be monitored and specifically analysed against gender and pay to measure impact.
  • Every employee is managed effectively and fairly through an annual review of performance and target setting, with regular one-to-one meetings throughout the year. The performance review has an element of self-assessment, but is focused on a joint, collaborative approach from the manager and employee. The performance appraisal process informs pay progression decisions later in the calendar year.


In summary

The Trust takes very seriously its equality and diversity and is always developing new ways to encourage people to be part of our workforce – whether as an employee or a volunteer. We want people to recognise us as a great place to work – irrespective of gender (or any other protected characteristic) – but we know that there are some issues we need to address, and that these may take some time. The Trust has embarked on a transformational journey to make sure that we can continue to be a leader in conservation and heritage, and ‘doing the right thing’ for our workforce is very high on our agenda.

You can read more about our work across our website.

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Find out more about current career opportunities

Download

Gender Pay Gap Report 2023

pdf (143.28 KB)

Download the full 2023 gender pay gap report for the Trust.

Gender pay gap reports from previous years

Download

Download the full 2022 gender pay gap report for the Trust.

Download

Download the full 2021 gender pay gap report for the Trust.

Download

Download the full 2020 gender pay gap report for the Trust.

Download

Download the full 2019 gender pay gap report for the Trust.

Download

Gender Pay Gap Report 2018

pdf (223.84 KB)

Download the full 2018 gender pay gap report for the Trust.