Gender and Diversity Pay Gap Report

Two female gardeners walk along the garden path at Nymans. The staff member on the left pushes a wheelbarrow full of clippings and they're both wrapped up in fleeces and hats for wintry weather. — Gardeners at Nymans in West Sussex | © National Trust Images/John Millar

Read our latest Gender and Diversity Pay Gap Report and learn about the work we're doing to close these gaps. The report reveals how our gender pay gap compares to the national average and why we've committed to publishing our diversity pay gaps for the first time.

A pay gap measures the difference in pay between the average of two different groups of employees in an organisation, regardless of the work they do. Like every large organisation, we’ve declared our gender pay gap reporting since 2017. We're also voluntarily sharing our disability, ethnicity and sexual orientation pay gaps.

Our latest Gender and Diversity Pay Gap Report was published in January 2024 and provides a summary of pay and people data as of 5 April 2023.

Read the Pay Gap Report

Gender pay gap findings in 2023

The gender pay gap results continue to show an overall improvement since our first reported figures in 2017.

In April 2023:

We employed more women than men across the organisation, making up 66 per cent of our workforce. We also employed a good balance of women and men in our senior roles.
The report shows our mean average hourly rate paid to men was 8.6 per cent higher than the mean average hourly rate paid to women. This is below the UK’s national mean average pay gap of 13.2 per cent.

Our gender pay gap exists because we employ more women in lower paid roles, such as retail, food and beverage and visitor services, where the majority of applicants have traditionally been female.

As these roles make up a high proportion of our workforce, this has a large impact on our calculations of the average hourly rates for women and men across the organisation. More details, including our median average, can be found in the report.

A staff member leans into a large white doll's house, cleaning the miniature paintings hanging on its wall with a small cotton swab. — Staff conserving miniature items from the doll's house at Uppark, West Sussex | © National Trust Images/James Dobson

Diversity pay gap findings in 2023

It’s important that everyone has an equally positive experience of our work and feels welcome, whether they’re a visitor, volunteer or staff member. We call this work Everyone Welcome, and it’s why we’re publishing our diversity pay gap findings despite it not being mandatory yet.

Our Diversity Pay Gap Report reveals findings on our disability, ethnicity and sexual orientation pay gaps, including the median averages. In April 2023:

The mean average hourly rate paid to employees who are not disabled was 2.6 per cent higher than the mean average hourly rate paid to employees who identify as being disabled.
The mean average hourly rate paid to white employees was 4.4 per cent higher than the mean average hourly rate paid to employees who've declared themselves to have a Black, Asian or minority ethnic background.
The mean average hourly rate paid to heterosexual employees was 6.2 per cent higher than the mean average hourly rate paid to employees who identify as LGBTQ+.

Currently, there aren’t any national benchmarks to compare these pay gaps against. The diversity of our workforce is gradually increasing each year and we'll continue to monitor our three diversity pay gaps, alongside gender.

We will continue our commitment to foster a culture of openness and honesty when it comes to pay, ensuring our policies and practice remain supportive of a more balanced and diverse workforce at all levels of our organisation.

A quote by Tina LewisNational Trust Director of People

Future Gender and Diversity Pay Gap Reports

Each year we’ll publish our gender pay gap information, as required under government regulations. From 2023, we’ll also publish our disability, ethnicity and sexual orientation pay gap information on a voluntary basis.