The UK government requires all legal entities with 250 or more employees to annually disclose their gender pay gap, based on an annual “snapshot” of the employee population on 5 April 2024.
The Group’s 2024 gender pay report includes disclosures of the mean and median gender pay gap for the Group’s main UK trading entity, Moonpig.com Limited as required by legislation, together with voluntary disclosures for the whole of Moonpig Group plc.
The gender pay gap is not the same thing as equal pay. Equal pay is a legal requirement that men and women receive the same remuneration for performing the same or substantially similar work, under the same conditions. This legislation directly affects how employees are compensated and is enforced to prevent pay discrimination based on gender. Moonpig Group ensures compliance with this legislation through processes and controls implemented at every stage of the employee lifecycle.
The gender pay gap is distinct from equal pay as it refers to the differences in average earnings between men and women across an organisation, irrespective of their functional specialisms, roles or seniority. It is a disclosure requirement aimed at increasing transparency about pay disparities that arise from overall workforce composition, rather than focusing on direct comparisons of pay for the same job. This reporting helps identify and address systemic issues contributing to earnings inequality, reflecting factors such as the relative seniority of men and women, which can influence overall pay differentials.
Progress since our last report
We have continued to make progress in reducing the gender pay gap. Across Moonpig Group, we have reduced the mean hourly gender pay gap by 6.1%pts year-on-year from 29.6% at 5 April 2023 to 23.5% at 5 April 2024.
There has been a headline increase in the bonus rate gender pay gap, however this is driven by the vesting of the first tranche of the pre-IPO award, which is a legacy scheme and is not part of our ongoing remuneration policy. We do not consider it to be representative of the Group’s trajectory or the improvements that we have made across the period since the IPO. Excluding the pre-IPO award, Moonpig Group’s median bonus gender pay gap improved year-on-year by 3.2%pts to 38.4% and its mean bonus gender pay gap improved year-on-year by 3.6%pts to 48.5%.
The Group’s gender pay gap is primarily due to relative under-representation of women in our technology function (which reflects the wider societal challenge of female under-representation in technical roles) together with the current gender composition of the Executive Committee.
Our long-term aim is to close the Group’s gender pay gap, through systemic action to balance gender representation across our business, as set out in the sustainability Goal 4 (combined leadership representation of women and ethnic minorities) and Goal 7 (female new hires into technology roles), however the impacts of these actions will take time to be realised.