Improbable’s 2022/23 UK gender pay gap report

Today, Improbable is releasing its annual gender pay gap report for 2022/23, along with information on how the company is continuing to work on its pay gap and, more broadly, to promote diversity in its workforce.

The ‘gender pay gap’ is the difference in earnings between women and men across all job levels in an organisation.

Please note: although gender definitions in the gender pay gap report are based on current legal definitions and collection requirements, Improbable believes employees should identify with the gender that feels right for them. Improbable remains committed to treating everyone fairly, regardless of gender identity.

The 2022/23 gender pay gap report is measured at a snapshot date of 5 April 2023. It shows a gender pay gap YOY decrease of 1.1 percentage points to 21.9% (mean) and an increase of 0.1 percentage points to 24.2% (median). This is a small improvement on last year, and the company recognises more work is needed to reduce this gap.

The primary reason for Improbable’s gender pay gap is the lower number of women in senior and technical roles. The company will continue to take positive, proactive steps in hiring and early talent programmes to sustainably address representation challenges.

	Mean	YOY	Median	YOY
Pay gap	21.90%	-1.1%	24.20%	+0.10%

The next table shows the proportion of women and men by pay quartile. Pay rates are listed from lowest to highest paid, split into four equal-sized groups. While the overall demographic of women remained stable, a positive shift was recorded to more women in the upper quartiles, through hiring and promotions. However, these numbers are still significantly below the overall representation of women at Improbable.

Quartile	Men	Women	YOY (women)
Lower	61.86%	38.14%	-0.26%
Lower middle	70.1%	29.9%	-2.9%
Upper middle	80.41%	19.59%	+2.79%
Upper	87.63%	12.37%	+1.17%

Eligible Improbable employees can receive sign on, performance, baby, retention and executive bonuses. During the snapshot period, a higher proportion of women (30.69%) than men (29.33%) received a bonus. This marks a change from last year, where women were 10.5 percentage points below men. However, the mean and median bonus gender pay gaps both rose, due to senior positions predominantly being held by men in the organisation, making them eligible for higher bonus payments.

	Mean	YOY	Median	YOY
Bonus pay gap	80.77%	+42.17%	33.33%	+33.33%

Building on commitments from last year’s report, representation challenges are continuing to be addressed in a holistic and sustainable way, as follows:

Inclusive talent hiring: Gender minority interview targets for senior hires at 1.5x expected industry representation. Focusing first on sprints to build candidate pipelines from underrepresented groups. Ensuring over 30% of interviews are from an underrepresented group.

Driving equity in performance: Building bias disruptors into performance. Performance Playbook with guidance/disruptive questions for managers. Calibrating all performance scores/decisions with People Partners. Demographic data monitoring to identify biases/negative trends. Level-based behaviours to drive more objective, consistent processes.

Utilising data: Ongoing measurement of equity and inclusion in gender and ethnicity data in the areas of hiring, performance, change management, employee engagement, and recognition and reward.

Building peer-support communities: Lean In Network (founded 2023) – to which 60% of women and underrepresented genders within Improbable are part of – to provide a sense of belonging. Intersectional groups for parents, engineers and women of colour. Career development topics that focus on confidence, imposter syndrome, personal brand and authenticity.

Continuing education: Support and training for people, managers and leaders on powerful allyship (understanding biases and effective allyship), #IAmRemarkable (confidence and personal brand building for underrepresented groups) and neurodiversity (including ADHD, autism, dyslexia and dyspraxia). Management Academy sessions on ‘Igniting Inclusion’ and ‘The In-Crowd’ made available to all managers.

Embedding values and behaviours: Building on a 2024 launch of refreshed values, which provide a clear, objective framework that will be embedded throughout hiring, performance, career paths and recognition, to make Improbable processes fairer and more consistent.

We confirm that the information and data in this report are accurate and in line with the requirements of the gender pay gap reporting regulations.

Signed by:

• David Barker, VP People

• Herman Narula, CEO