Gender Pay Gap Report 2023

The Gender Pay Gap regulations require companies to report their gender pay gap for all legal entities in Great Britain with more than 250 employees.

The gender pay gap shows the difference in average pay between women and men. It does not measure equal pay, which relates to what women and men are paid for the same or similar jobs or work of equal value. Our approach to pay is gender neutral and our analysis confirms that our pay gap is driven by the structure of our workforce.

The regulations require the pay gap figures to be reported in two ways – (i) as a mean and (ii) as a median.  The mean calculates the total amount earned across an organisation, divided by the number of people employed. The median looks at the pay of all the people in the range and identifies the mid-point, removing any distorting impacts at either end of the range. 

As required by the UK legislation, we are publishing data for the two legal entities that employ more than 250 people, St James Group Limited and Berkeley Homes (East Thames) Limited. We also feel it is important to show the total picture for the Berkeley Group which employed approximately 2,800 people across its business in the UK, regardless of employing entity.  Therefore we are also voluntarily publishing consolidated data for the entire Group.

We included all relevant employees under the regulations as at 5 April 2023 when calculating the figures below. The salary data includes base salary and certain allowances in line with the government guidelines, while bonus figures include total variable pay over the previous 12 months (bonus, commissions and other incentives paid, plus vesting of Long Term Incentive Plan awards). 

The median pay gap for the Group is 32.7%. Like much of our industry, this is primarily driven by the shape of our workforce, with a lower proportion of women in senior, higher paid roles, and more women occupying junior, lower paid roles, alongside Berkeley’s strategy for procurement whereby construction labour (roles typically filled by men) is procured through subcontractor packages rather than directly employed labour.

The shape of our workforce also impacts our bonus gap, with our senior executives participating in the Company’s Long-Term Incentive Plans. 

Berkeley is committed to paying for performance equally and fairly, and rewarding and retaining our best people. We are already taking steps to increase the proportion of women within Berkeley as a whole, recognising the desire in the Group to promote from within and therefore providing increased opportunities for career progression within the organisation and to more senior roles over the long-term.

Central to this is to create a positive working environment for our people; one that fosters respect, support, wellbeing, safety and inclusivity. In 2022 we further developed our action plans in support of the strategic priorities within Our Vision 2030, Berkeley's long-term strategy.

Employee Experience

The first priority area is ‘Employee Experience’ which places a specific focus on several areas, including employee experience and diversity and inclusion. We are focusing on a range of actions across the business to help drive change; setting the tone from the top with strong leadership; working in partnership with external organisations; training all of our people in equity, diversity and inclusion; enhancing networking opportunities; raising awareness to all through communication on key topics and employing best practice recruitment practices.  

There is a historic under-representation of women in our industry and we believe there are real benefits in ensuring diverse views, skills and perspectives which can lead to creative thinking and more effective problem solving. We are committed to creating an engaged and inclusive environment by developing guiding principles and seeking to attract and retain a diverse workforce. 

Over the past year we have continued to develop our approach to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion for everyone working in the Berkeley Group. 

Over the past five years we have introduced enhanced maternity and paternity policies, with the view of attracting and retaining more women, and also a more agile approach to working compared to traditional construction roles to attract and retain a more diverse pool of talent. 

In addition to these initiatives, as a business we understand the importance of recruiting responsibly to help with the progression of women within the business. We understand the importance emerging talent schemes such as apprentice and graduate programmes have in attracting women into the industry, as evidenced by almost 50% of our women that currently work in construction at Berkeley Group having entered the business through one of these structured schemes.  

Recruiting females into the business is a key step to addressing the gap but to strengthen the output we have also committed to increasing the level of women in management positions to 33% by 2026 to be more representative of our overall workforce. To help achieve this we have implemented mentoring programmes that focus specifically on the progression of women in production roles. This year we have ten women enrolled in the Mentoring Circle programme. 

The health and wellbeing of our employees is also at the core of our values.  All employees receive a suite of health and wellbeing benefits and those that have been in the business for two years are eligible for a free comprehensive health check that includes tests specific to female health such as breast cancer screening. 

Throughout the individual operating companies local initiatives have been implemented to continue to improve the personal and professional development of women within the business. Included in this is the establishment of Employee Resource Networks (ERNs).   Two of these groups are focussed on addressing gender equality: Parents and Carers, and Women and Allies.

These networks have evolved to include activities such as large-scale events bringing women together, the implementation of training and development specifically focussed in areas such as imposter syndrome and public speaking, and improving resources and materials such as women returning to work from Maternity Leave. 

We have seen several events throughout the year to encourage networking and further conversation around how Women thrive at work, including our biggest event to date celebrating International Women’s Day. For this we brought together 250 people across the business with the overarching aim of discussing the importance of allyship and how we can strengthen and empower allies within the business. 

Skills and Training

Our second strategic priority focuses on ‘Future Skills’ looking at how we can create tangible long-term change within the industry and inspire a broad range of people to join the built environment sector. This will naturally take a period of time but we are investing for the long term.

Our apprenticeship scheme continues to target a balanced intake each year, aiming to identify the next generation of leaders within the organisation, and in 2024 we saw 32% of positions filled by female candidates; a number of these in job roles traditionally filled by males in our industry.  

In line with our continued work with local communities we have completed a number of engagements with young people in schools, some of which have been designed to specifically promote careers in the built environment to young women and girls.

We have a number of affiliations with companies that promote women to work in the built environment. We have enhanced a long-standing relationship with Women into Construction by becoming a Platinum Member and are a founding partner for the Mayor’s Fund for London Firm Foundations diversity pledge.

We confirm that the data reported is accurate.

Rob Perrins | Chief Executive, Berkeley Group
Richard Stearn | Chief Financial Officer, Berkeley Group