Gender Pay Gap Report 2025

Introduction 

Berkeley’s passion and purpose is to build quality homes, strengthen communities and make a positive difference to people’s lives.  Our people are integral to everything we do and we recognise that diversity of talent makes a positive contribution to our organisation. 

Through our responsible business strategy, Our Vision, we are taking action on equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), to create a workplace that is fair, inclusive and respectful, where everyone feels safe and supported, able to achieve their maximum potential and be part of an exciting and rewarding industry. We are seeing more women in our business overall, together with encouraging numbers of women choosing to enter the industry through our graduate and apprenticeship programmes. We have achieved our target of one third of manager roles to be held by women and currently more than 20% of leadership roles are held by women.  

Whilst there has been a reduction in both mean and median pay gaps this year, we acknowledge the existence of a gender pay gap and the necessity for ongoing action. 

Gender Pay Reporting Requirements 

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 2,600 people across its business in the UK, regardless of employing entity. Therefore we are also voluntarily publishing consolidated data for the entire Group.

Berkeley's Gender Pay Statistics 

We included all relevant employees under the regulations as at 5 April 2025 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). 

Gender Pay Gap Results

Proportion of Colleagues Receiving a Bonus

 

Pay Quartiles

Understanding Our Pay Gap 

Since we began reporting in 2017, our mean and median gender pay gaps have decreased by more than 20%, reflecting sustained progress over time. In 2025 there was a reduction in both mean and median pay gaps.

As with much of our industry, the existence of a gender pay gap at Berkeley has continued to be influenced by the overall shape of our workforce and our procurement model for construction labour. There are a lower proportion of women in senior, higher paid roles, and more women occupying junior, lower paid roles. This has been slowly improving year on year since we began reporting in 2017. In 2025, more women were in the upper and upper middle pay quartiles compared to previous years, but there remains a higher proportion of women than men in the lower quartile. 

The proportion of women in our business varies across our teams, with a high or growing number of women in a range of roles, including people functions, sustainability, sales and marketing and finance. However, within the production areas of the business, women are still underrepresented; this includes our construction teams on site, together with supporting functions such as commercial, procurement and health and safety. We have had success at recruiting more women into graduate and apprentice roles in production and aim to grow representation through our early careers development.  

The structure of our workforce also impacts our bonus gap, with our senior leaders participating in the Company’s Long-Term Incentive Plans. Over time it is anticipated that changes in the representation of women at senior levels will influence bonus outcomes. 

Addressing the Gap 

We are committed to paying for performance equally and fairly and rewarding and retaining our best people. 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 remain committed to creating an engaged and inclusive environment and seeking to attract and retain a diverse workforce. 

The construction industry and broader built environment sector has long been male-dominated, and our business reflects this broader trend. As of 2025, women comprised approximately 15% of the UK's construction industry workforce, a figure that has remained relatively unchanged for over two decades. Historically around one third of our colleagues were women, a figure which has been increasing over time to 40% in April 2025.

Over the past year we have focused on, and continue to drive, a range of actions across the business to help drive change:

Strong Leadership to Support Diversity  

Our Main Board meets the recommendations of the FTSE Women Leaders Review which promotes increased representation of women on boards. As of April 2025, 44% of Berkeley’s Board of Directors were female, including our Senior Independent Director. 

Each member of our Executive Director team is responsible for our approach to EDI and encouraging senior leadership support within our autonomous businesses for all aspects of its implementation. 

Setting the tone at a leadership level is key to creating a culture where everyone can thrive; our Leadership Competency Framework clearly outlines the importance of our management staff in creating an inclusive environment. Our Group values – and particularly respect for people – are used within staff communications to establish expected behaviours within the workplace.

Developing Women in the Business

In recent years we have focused on increasing the number of women in management positions and in FY25 we reached our target of 33% of managers being women. One fifth of our leaders (defined as directors and heads of departments) are women and we will continue to focus on increasing this figure over time. There is a desire to promote from within and therefore provide increased opportunities for career progression within the organisation and to more senior roles over the long-term. 

To supplement leadership and management programmes run across the business, we have chosen to invest in The Circle Academy for the third consecutive year. The Circle Academy is an industry-wide programme established to increase and promote female talent retention in the built environment, through mentoring, networking and leadership development. In 2025 13 women from Berkeley Group successfully completed the year-long programme and 10 women have been selected to join the programme for 2026. 

To extend the reach of programmes to empower and support the growth of women, in 2025 we piloted a new programme, Elevate, designed by The Circle Partnership. This comprised five modules tailored specifically for women covering content such as confidence and authenticity and communicating with impact. 

Recognising the Challenges Faced by Women in the Built Environment Sector

In 2025 we established a Group-wide Women’s Network to help drive inclusion initiatives throughout the year and bring together existing networks from our autonomous businesses. The Group-wide network has worked on a programme of themed sessions designed to engage a wider audience across the business. These include events and awareness raising on the parenting juggle, women working on construction sites and allyship, creating space for practical conversations about balancing responsibilities, visibility in operational roles and the role colleagues at all levels can play in supporting inclusion.

Group-wide actions are supported by a range of local initiatives, from coaching and mentoring to buddy programmes for maternity leavers that provide support both before and after leave. During the year we have also taken steps to respond to the specific challenges women working on construction sites can face. Initiatives include training on Imposter Syndrome and confidence-building workshops to support women in developing self-belief and visibility, alongside awareness campaigns to reinforce a safe and inclusive working environment. 

International Women’s Day remains a key milestone in our annual calendar, providing a focal point for engagement, reflection and action. In 2025 we held an event attended by more than 10% of our employees to help raise awareness, share actions being taken and progress. 

Attracting More Women Into the Built Environment Sector

Attracting and recruiting more women into our business is a crucial step in addressing the gender gap and fostering a culture where everyone can thrive. Currently more than 40% of our employees are female, and we continue to work towards attracting more women into both Berkeley and the wider industry to support a balanced gender mix in the future. 

Emerging talent schemes offer a key opportunity to increase the number of women; this year we saw 65% of graduate positions filled by female candidates, a number of these in job roles traditionally filled by males in our industry.  

In line with our work in local communities, we have also continued to engage with young people in schools to raise the profile of the industry and job roles available. Some of these activities have been designed specifically to promote careers in the built environment to young women and girls, such as an annual Girls in Construction work experience programme.

People Policy and Practices

We provide benefits which support women at different stages of their careers and lives, including wellbeing, family-friendly and flexible benefits. In 2024 we enhanced our maternity leave policy (increasing fully paid leave from three to six months) and we offer women a dedicated Menopause Plan through our healthcare provider so women can get tailored support and feel confident about managing symptoms. 

We operate core working hours to enable people to flex their day to meet their needs, supporting better work-life balance and greater flexibility around personal and caring responsibilities. Our autonomous businesses implement agile working policies locally. These are based on local employee and operational needs, whilst recognising that we are an industry that relies on site presence for construction and sales and face-to-face working to solve complex problems with a variety of stakeholders, often with early starts and tight deadlines to meet. 

We support the built environment sector’s Fairness, Inclusion and Respect (FIR) programme, led by the Sustainability Supply Chain School, which provides training and resources to promote equality, diversity and inclusion across the industry. Alongside more than 30 of our employees acting as FIR ambassadors, we are also now represented on the FIR Steering Group, enabling us to share insight from our business and contribute to shaping industry-wide approaches to fairness, inclusion and respect.

Richard Stearn | Chief Executive, Berkeley Group
Neil Eady | Chief Financial Officer, Berkeley Group