gender pay gap report - pearson

Gender Pay GapReport2020 Annual ReportGreat Britain

2 GB Gender Pay Gap Report Pearson 2020

2020 was a pivotal year for diversity, equity and inclusion. First up, Covid-19 upended the way we work. Work-from-home is now the norm, impacting how we communicate, connect and co-create. As we look forward to the future of the ‘office’, it is looking increasingly likely that a new hybrid way of working will emerge – this has huge potential to contribute as a great leveller in terms of gender equality and diversity.

2020 was also the year that systemic racism in society and its role in holding back Black and other ethnically diverse people from fulfilling their potential truly got the attention it deserved. Education is a powerful force for equity and change in our world and Pearson has responded by setting a series of ambitious company-wide goals underpinned by a robust action plan. As part of our plan, we established a new Chief Diversity Officer position and will invest in an expanded diversity team to accelerate our work on eliminating barriers for all our people to achieve their full potential.

This is our fourth gender pay gap report and I’m pleased that we can again report progress made in creating more opportunities for women at the

more senior levels of the company. Pearson’s overall median gender pay gap report as of the snapshot date of April 5th 2020 is now 10%. This represents a 5% narrowing since our first gender pay gap report.

Nevertheless, there is still much work ahead. Our robust action plan continues to guide us as we drive investment towards the hiring, retention and development of our female employees. Critical is raising awareness of the unique challenges faced by women in the workplace including the specific issues of LGBTQ+, BAME and disabled women as well as those with children, elderly parents, and other caring obligations. We work closely with our leaders and our employee resource groups to foster a culture of inclusion at every level.

In this report, we reaffirm our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion and set out the steps that we are taking to address the gap across our company operations, not just in Great Britain, but globally. Later this year, we will publish a global gender pay gap report for our larger countries fulfilling a commitment we first made three years ago to voluntarily extend our gender pay gap reporting.

A Message From Anna Vikström Persson

“2020 was a pivotal year for diversity, equity and inclusion”

Anna Vikstӧm Persson

Chief Human Resources Officer

Pearson 2020

3 GB Gender Pay Gap Report

Pearson reports pay gap data for all our employees in Great Britain regardless of whether or not they work in companies that exceed the reporting threshold of 250 or more employees.A note about the dataPearson has seven group legal entities across Great Britain which operate a payroll. Together, they employ about 4,000 people as at the time of publishing. We disclose our pay and bonus gap data for all employees as we believe this consolidated figure is the most meaningful and representative picture of our employee footprint in Great Britain.

Three group companies had 250 or more employees and so were within the scope of the regulations. Together these three entities (Pearson Education Limited, Pearson Professional Assessments Limited and TQ Education and Training Limited) represented 87% of our workforce in Great Britain.

Pay Gap 2017 2018 2019 2020

Percentage of GB employees included

94% 100% 100% 100%

Median Mean Median Mean Median Mean Median Mean

Gender Pay Gap 15% 21% 14% 21% 12% 19% 10% 17%

Gender Bonus Gap 18% 52% 12% 49% 21% 48% 14% 48%

Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women

Proportion of men and women receiving a bonus

64% 63% 70% 63% 70% 69% 69% 64%

Our Gender Pay Gap

10%Median hourly pay gap for GB employees

14%Median bonus gap for GB employees

For full gender pay and bonus gap information for each reporting entity and the overall group, see page 11.

To find out more about why we focus on the median pay gap and other questions, check out our FAQs on page 12.


The gender pay gap is a measure of the difference between mean and median earnings of men and women across the company.

Analysis of the data shows that the explanation for the gender pay gap at Pearson in Great Britain is primarily a result of fewer women having advanced into senior level roles.

Pearson uses a career framework to provide consistency on how we assess and grade our people. In addition to the Pearson Executive, we employ eight standard job grades from entry-level (A) through to senior leadership (G and H). Within our standard job grades, we have:

– More women than men below Vice President (VP) level (F in our career framework)

– Fewer women than men at VP level and above

Why do we have a gender pay gap?

Narrowing the gapOur gender pay gap shows we need to focus on eliminating barriers for all our people to fulfil their potential. We need to do more to create opportunities for women to progress to bigger and broader roles. We set out our action plan to narrow the gap on page 5.

Understanding the size of the challenge we face means we can accelerate the pace of the change we need to see.

What progress has there been in 2020 compared to 2019?Our headline gender pay gap has fallen 2% over the 12-month reporting period – our third year-on-year reduction. While the progress is positive, we still expect that addressing the gap will take time. During the period, we have seen the following shifts:

– One third of our Executive Management team in the UK are women as are 43% of our senior leaders (G and H)

– Over half of the 2020 cohort of people on our apprenticeships scheme are women (57%)

2%Our 2020 median gender pay gap has fallen 2% compared to 2019

What else has Pearson done to further gender equality?In 2020, Pearson launched our Gender Equality Guidelines, a first-of-its-kind commitment by a learning company to tackle gender bias and stereotyping in education. The purpose of the guidelines is for use by Pearson in developing future textbooks, digital resources and qualifications supporting children across the UK to learn with gender-equal resources. The guidelines were created by our employee resource group focused on gender in close collaboration with The Fawcett Society, the leading voice in fighting gender inequality in the UK, who provided independent guidance, feedback and training. When creating the guidelines, Pearson recognised the importance of designing them to be respectful and inclusive of women, men, and people with non-binary identities.

Pearson 2020


Our plan to address the gender pay gap focuses on five key areas:

Professional development, support and mentoring;

Encouraging the empowerment of women and the formation of networks; Improving recruitment and pipeline management to enhance senior female representation;

Shaping our policies and culture around returning to work and flexible working; and,

Ensuring the consistent engagement of Executive Management and senior leaders.

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Pearson 2020


WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP AND LEARNING (WILL) Our Women in Learning & Leadership (WILL) network helps advance women at Pearson through career management, development and networking initiatives. WILL is made up of men and women who champion gender balance at Pearson. The UK chapter of WILL is the most active. WILL UK continued to help Pearson to narrow the Gender Pay Gap as one of its key priorities in 2020 and continuing into 2021. WILL UK has hosted a series of focus groups to understand the most important issues, worked with representatives from HR and the Global Diversity, Equity & Inclusion team on a series of Podcasts on the Gender Pay Gap Action Plan and hosted a virtual roundtable on the 2019 report.

Development, Support and MentoringProfessional development, support and mentoring – Our Mentoring for Women in Leadership programme links

members of the Pearson Executive to aspiring female talent at the Vice President level. Planning has started for a second cohort in 2021.

– In 2019, we ran Board Mentoring for Women in Leadership, a 10-month programme providing female Senior Vice Presidents with one-to-one learning partnerships with a Pearson Board member. A second cohort is also planned for 2021.

– We set up a sponsorship pilot targeting diverse colleagues and connecting them with business leaders drawn from our Global Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council.

– We incorporate gender consideration as a factor in global executive development programmes. For example, iLead – the leadership programme covering our UK business – has a specific module dedicated to Diversity and Inclusion.

– Our Wave programme facilitates opportunities for talented colleagues to move between business units and departments within the business, both domestically and internationally; transferring energy and ideas around the business. To date, 176 people have participated in the programme.

– Our employee resource group focused on gender continued participation in various mentoring schemes including the 30% Club, She Leads Change and the Pearson Student Advisory Board (PSAB). PSAB is an initiative which sees expertise from students used to advise on Pearson projects.

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Employee Resource GroupsEmployee Resource Groups (ERGs) are based around shared characteristics or life experiences. They are voluntary, employee-led groups which work to foster a diverse, inclusive workplace furthering the company strategy and values. Activities include the development of future leaders, employee engagement and expanding our marketplace recognition and reach. We have 10 global employee resource networks at Pearson and those active in Great Britain are in bold:

Generation Pearson Pearson Spectrum (LGBT+)Pearson ABLE Pearson VeteransPearson BOLD PRIME (Black Asian & Minority Ethnic)Pearson Latino Network Women in Learning and Leadership (WILL) Pearson Family Women in Technology (WIT)

2 EmpowermentEncouraging the empowerment of women and the formation of networks – Our 10 Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) exist to inspire

and influence employees and promote inclusion. One of these, Women in Learning & Leadership UK (WILL), helps advance women at Pearson through career management, development and networking initiatives. See case study on page 6 on how the UK chapter of WILL has partnered with the company on understanding the priorities that will help to narrow the gender pay gap.

– We have started a programme to evolve ERGs into business resource groups through a maturity model creating more visible leadership roles and connecting our ERGs with Executive champions.

– Our network of diversity advocates dedicate time to advance diversity across the world.

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Improving recruitment and pipeline-management to enhance senior female representation – We continued with our requirement for diverse slates

when recruiting at Vice President level roles and above.

– We applied the learning from a pilot using an augmented writing AI app designed to write job descriptions and job adverts for all roles in ways that are gender neutral.

– We continued with initiatives to position Pearson as an employer of choice for women, diverse talent and to attract next generation employees. Pearson is included in the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index.

– Unconscious Bias and Fast Thinking training modules are completed by our Talent Acquisition function. Both Fast Thinking and Unconscious Bias training are available to recruiting managers through our learning & development platform and every manager in our largest business unit in Great Britain has been assigned Unconscious Bias training.

– We carried out a recruitment/talent lifecycle review to better incorporate diversity across the process.

– Our Talent Acquisition team (TA) has introduced a buddy system linking a TA professional with each ERG.


Policies and CultureShaping our policies and culture around returning to work and flexible working – Our response to Covid-19 puts people first recognising

the extra challenges arising from home schooling and caring responsibilities.

– Our Global WELL initiative was established to provide support, advice and guidance for our managers and all our employees on managing mental health and wellbeing. We have extended the global footprint of our Employee Assistance Programme, started to build out a network of Mental Health First Aiders beyond the UK and recruited employee volunteers to act as wellbeing champions.

– We continue to review our family friendly policies – last year, Pearson updated its paternity leave policy in the UK and now offers four weeks of paternity leave with full pay (up from two weeks).

– We carried out a series of myth busting sessions focusing on areas such as parental leave and flexible working.

– We host a global diversity and inclusion week to celebrate role models, focus on success, share best practice and raise awareness of diversity, equity and inclusion plans for the year ahead.

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Pearson 2020


Executive Ownership, Accountability and Engagement

Senior Leaders Supporting National Campaigns– 30% ClubWe are signed up to the 30% Club ambition of reaching a minimum of 30% women in senior leadership teams of FTSE100 companies by 2020. Pearson has met that target with women accounting for 36% of our senior leadership team globally. Our commitment is to continue to increase that total.

Ensuring the consistent engagement of Executive Management and senior leaders. – A focus this year on race and ethnicity has led to a

decision to appoint a Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) and to invest in an enhanced centre of expertise for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) to support our goals to advance the agenda globally. Our CDO started in February 2021

– Adopted ‘improving gender representation at the top two levels of the company as a formal DE&I goal’ and embedded this into the HR strategy. Additionally, having reached our 33% representation goal of women at the top of the organisation (Executive Management and Senior Leadership), we adopted a stretch goal to reach 40%.

– Continued with our Global DE&I Council chaired by the CEO to oversee progress and drive accountability against diversity goals.

– Adopted a company-wide goal – Pearson sees a world of talent. Our Executive Management used this as the basis to establish priority areas for improvement tailored to each business / entity.

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Company name Number of employees

Mean gender pay gap

Median gender pay gap

Mean gender bonus gap

Median gender bonus gap

Proportion of men receiving a bonus

Proportion of women receiving a bonus

Pearson GB 3697 17% 10% 48% 14% 69% 64%

Pearson Education Limited 1925 11% 8% 25% 6% 92% 90%

Pearson Professional Assessments Limited 1015 2% 0% 60% -2% 19% 10%

TQ Education & Training Limited 263 27% 26% 66% 37% 59% 47%

“As the executive responsible for oversight of Gender Pay Gap Information reporting across all statutory entities, I confirm that the data and information presented in this report are accurate and meet the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017.”

Anna Vikström Persson Chief Human Resources Officer

Statutory DeclarationSummary of gender pay gap data

Proportion of men and women by pay quartile

Lowest Quartile Lower Mid Quartile Upper Mid Quartile Upper Quartile

Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Men

Pearson GB 61% 39% 60% 40% 56% 44% 47% 53%

Pearson Education Limited 61% 39% 63% 37% 60% 40% 51% 49%

Pearson Professional Assessments Limited 64% 37% 54% 46% 60% 40% 58% 42%

TQ Education & Training Limited 71% 29% 52% 48% 24% 76% 20% 80%

For more informationWe hope you have found this document of use and interest. If you have any questions, or thoughts on ways we can improve our gender pay gap reporting, we would be pleased to hear from you. You can email us at

[email protected]

mailto:sustainability%40pearson.com?subject=

12 GB Gender Pay Gap Report

What does the legislation require? All legal entities with 250 or more employees must disclose:

– Mean and median gender pay gap – Mean and median bonus gap – Proportion of women and men by quartile pay band – Proportion of men and women receiving a bonus – Pay gap data is based on hourly rates of pay as at 5 April 2020.

Bonus data is for the 12 months prior to 5th April 2020.

What is a quartile pay band? This divides the employee population into pay bands from the top 25% (quarter) and then each subsequent quarter down to the lowest paid.

Is gender binary? Today, gender doesn’t simply refer to male or female and we recognise that a growing number of our people identify in different ways. However, the approach required by the regulations is to compare the pay of men and women. We have followed this approach for the purposes of this report based on the information provided by employees in respect of gender.

Is the gender pay gap the same as equal pay?

No. Gender pay is the difference between the gross hourly earnings for all men and the gross hourly earnings for all women. Equal pay is about men and women being paid equally for equivalent work.

Does Pearson pay men and women equally?

Equal pay is both a legal requirement and a matter of principle for Pearson. We use a career framework model to determine a position grade level and salary. Other factors that may influence pay for individuals at Pearson include performance and experience which are taken into consideration as part of the annual salary review process each year.

What proportion of Pearson employees are based in Great Britain?

Pearson is a global company employing 21,000 in total. Of these, about 4,000 or 19% are based in Great Britain. Pearson has made a commitment to disclose gender pay gap data for its global employees in our larger countries – a report we will publish later in the year.

What is the mean? The mean is the average. In this case, it’s the total of all hourly rates, divided by the number of employees.

What is the median? The median is the midpoint. It’s the middle value of the hourly rates for both women and men when listed in order.

Is the mean or the median a better way to assess how we are doing?

Many companies including Pearson typically use the median to assess how they are doing. About half of the employee population earn more than the median salary while half earn less. The distribution of pay among employees is usually skewed, meaning that the highest paid employees earn significantly more than the lowest paid, so the mean / average tends to be much higher than the median.

Are Pearson numbers impacted by the furlough scheme?

No. Pearson did not access the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme during 2020.

FAQs

Pearson 2020

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