L&Q's 2021 fair pay report

L&Q’s latest fair pay report has revealed that the median gender pay gap stands at 9.6%. For comparison, the latest UK-wide figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the gender pay gap increased to 15.4%, from 14.9% in 2020.

This slight rise nationally in 2021 reflects what has happened at L&Q. Estimates are provisional based on companies that have already reported. We don’t know why this rise has happened but a hypothesis is that with people making different choices in light of the pandemic, women (who still typically take on more domestic labour) are choosing more part time/lower paid options for a better work-life balance.

The median ethnicity pay gap fell to -0.6% in the latest L&Q report, which uses data from 2021.

Figures from care and support subsidiary, L&Q Living, reported a 8.1% median pay gap for gender and 0.3% median pay gap for ethnicity.

The report also shows that the median wage for disabled L&Q employees was 4.3% higher than for other colleagues, and 2.3% higher for L&Q Living.

In publishing our disability pay reporting, L&Q has joined the minority of organisations that currently do so.

To tackle the pay gaps further, L&Q is continuing to:

• set targets for recruitment into our Senior Leadership Group guaranteeing an interview for women and BAME candidates who meet the minimum criteria for the role
• develop a succession and talent management strategy, with the requirement to nurture diverse talent at its heart

We have also:

• launched ‘Accelerate’ in partnership with our G15 partners which is a development programme for BAME managers aspiring to senior leadership 
• launched our newest staff diversity network, Ability, and have worked with disability charity Enhance the UK to provide disability awareness training for our staff
• developed our 360 mentoring programme, enabling senior leaders to access the diverse perspectives, experience and skills of junior colleagues

L&Q’s Assistant Director of Diversity and Inclusion, Jan Gale, said:

“It’s fantastic to see our ethnicity pay gap is stable at below 1%. Whilst our gender pay gap has increased slightly, this is in line with a broader trend across the country which we are working to understand. We are fully committed to improving pay parity and are proud to remain transparent by including our ethnicity and disability pay reporting once again in our fair pay report this year.”

To find out more, download the Fair Pay Report 2021 (PDF).

*The L&Q fair pay report is based on a snapshot date of 5 April 2021. Under government regulations this must be published no later than 4 October 2022. The reference to the 2021 report refers to the snapshot date rather than the publication date.