Balfour Beatty continues year-on-year improvement, latest figures show

A quarter of the country鈥檚 40 biggest contractors and housebuilders have decided to report their gender pay gap data six months ahead of when they are required to do so.

Firms with a headcount of more than 250 have been given until 5 October to publish their gender pay gap reports 鈥 a six month extension from the scheduled deadline of 4 April, which was Easter Sunday, because of the covid-19 pandemic.

Women in engineering

Big employers have been required by law to publish gender pay gaps for the past three years

Companies had already been excused from reporting their figures last year because of the pandemic but 32 of the 40 decided to do so anyway.

Gender pay gap reports provide a snapshot of a firm鈥檚 payment data on 5 April of the preceding year. This means the reports published this year will provide a view of how businesses were performing on 5 April 2020.

Since 2017, firms with more than 250 employees have been required by law to publish annual gender gaps.

Balfour Beatty, Mace, Wates, Galliford Try, Costain, Keller, Tilbury Douglas, Engie and Sir Robert McAlpine have all published their latest reports and have been joined by housebuilders Barratt, Bellway and Taylor Wimpey.

Figures for the country鈥檚 biggest contractor, Balfour Beatty, reveal that its improvement continued into a third year with the gap narrowing from 26% in 2019 to 17.8% last year.

But of the firms to report so far, Wates posted the largest median gender pay gap at 47.1%. This is up from 36.8% in the figures it posted last year

It was followed by Mace at 38.6%. This means women earn 61p for every 拢1 that men receive.

By contrast, the smallest median gender pay gap was at groundworks specialist Keller with a gap of 17.6%.

Mace also voluntarily published its ethnicity pay and bonus gap data, which showed a 27.7% median wage gap between white and minority employees.

The firm with the greatest swing toward women was Taylor Wimpey, reporting an 18% gender pay gap in favour of women. The previous year the housebuilder鈥檚 gap was 4% in favour of women.

The remaining firms all reported gaps of between 17% and 33%.

Just eight firms out of the top 40 listed below did not report last year. They were Bam, Bowmer & Kirkland, Cala, ISG, Mears, Multiplex, Redrow, and VolkerWessels.

At the time of publishing, data for a ninth firm, Berkeley Group, was not available on the government portal.

Top 40 contractors and housebuilders gender pay gap data

EmployerMedian pay gap % (5 April 2020)Median pay gap % (5 April 2019)Median pay gap % (5 April 2018)Difference in median pay gap % (positive number indicates pay gap has widened)% Women in top pay quartile% Difference in bonus pay (Median)
Wates Group Services Ltd  47.1 36.8 37.4 10.3  8.7  67.5
Mace Ltd 38.6 37.5 37.2 1.1 8 48
Galliford Try Employment Ltd 32.2 31.4 34.5 0.8 8.1 44.9
Homeserve Membership Ltd 32.1 34.2 29.1  -2.1  22.3  -103.5
Tilbury Douglas Construction Ltd 31 32.6 32 -1.6 6.8 73.4
Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd 30.9 29.7 32.7 1.2 9.1 3.5
Barratt Developments PLC 27.4 34.2 30.7 -6.8 24.7 51.7

BDW Trading Ltd**

0.8 0.4   0.4 27.6 -13.3
Engie Services Ltd 27.3 24.9 23.2  2.4  22.8  22.2
Costain Engineering & Construction Ltd 24.2 27.7 27 -3.5 13 50
Bellway Homes Ltd 18.6 20.3 24.8 -1.7 21 1.2
Balfour Beatty Group Employment Ltd 17.8 26 30 -8.2 10 28
Keller Ltd 17.6 9.7 13.2 7.9 6.8 47.8
Taylor Wimpey UK Ltd -18 -4 0 -14 32 41
Amey Services Ltd   31.3 30.5   13 73.3
Bam Construct UK Ltd   n/a 55.2      
Berkeley Group     38.9      
Bovis Homes Ltd   22.4 25.7      
Bowmer & Kirkland Ltd   n/a 48.4      
Cala Management Ltd   n/a 28.8      
Countryside Properties (UK) Ltd   33 33      
Crest Nicholson Operations Ltd   20 25      
ISG Construction Ltd   n/a 34.6      
J. Murphy & Sons Ltd   29.2 23.9      
J.S.Bloor (Services) Ltd   21.1 25.1      
Kier Ltd   14.4 20.5      
Laing O鈥橰ourke Services Ltd   6.9 10.9      
Lendlease Construction (Europe) Ltd   23.2 35.8      
McCarthy & Stone Management Services Ltd   3.6 5.6      
Mclaren Construction Ltd   49.4 58.4      
Mears Ltd   n/a 21.8      
Mitie Ltd   4.5 5      
Morgan Sindall Group   31.2 32      
Morrison Utility Services Ltd   13.4 13.1      
Mulitplex Construction Europe Ltd   n/a 46      
Persimmon Homes Ltd   12 9.8      
Redrow Homes Ltd   n/a -0.8      
Skanska Construction UK Ltd   10.1 22.4      
Vinci Construction UK Ltd   42.9 52      
Volkerwessels UK Ltd   n/a 31.4      
Willmott Dixon Construction Ltd   42.1 42.9      

* Barratt Developments PLC covers head office and the executive team

** BDW Trading Ltd covers 91% of Barratt鈥檚 workforce