About the Gender Pay Gap Calculator
This gender pay gap calculator turns two simple lists of pay — one for men, one for women — into the headline figures used in pay gap reporting: the mean (average) gap, the median gap, and the proportion of women in each pay quartile from lowest to highest paid. Paste hourly rates for the most comparable result, or annual salaries if that is what you have.
It is built for HR teams preparing a statutory or voluntary pay gap report, managers checking a team before a pay review, and anyone who wants to understand why a company’s mean and median gaps can tell different stories. A large mean gap with a small median gap usually points to a handful of very high earners, while the quartile split shows whether women are concentrated in lower-paid roles.
A pay gap is not the same as unequal pay for equal work. The gap compares average pay across everyone, so it reflects who holds which jobs as well as how each job is paid. The method here follows the approach used in UK gender pay gap reporting (gaps expressed as a percentage of men’s pay, four equal-sized quartiles), but the official UK figures must be based on ordinary hourly pay calculated under the regulations for a specific snapshot date.
With the default inputs, the median pay gap is 15.2%. Change any value above to recalculate instantly.
How to use the gender pay gap calculator
- 1Export pay for everyone in scope, ideally as an hourly rate for the same pay period.
- 2Paste men’s pay into the first box and women’s pay into the second, one value per line.
- 3Choose the currency so figures display correctly.
- 4Read the median and mean gaps, then check the quartile split to see where women sit in the pay distribution.
- 5Investigate large gaps by role and level — the overall gap mixes job distribution with pay rates.
Formula and method
Both gaps are expressed as a percentage of men’s pay, so a positive figure means men are paid more and a negative figure means women are paid more. The mean is the simple average of every value in a list; the median is the middle value once the list is sorted (the average of the two middle values when the count is even). The median is less affected by a few very high salaries, which is why it is usually the headline figure.
For the quartiles, everyone is ranked from lowest to highest pay and split into four equal-sized groups. The calculator then reports the percentage of women in each group. When the headcount is not divisible by four, boundaries fall part-way through a person, and when several people on exactly the same pay straddle a boundary they are shared between quartiles in proportion to the gender mix at that pay level, so the result does not depend on the order you typed them in.
- Mean pay
- Sum of pay values ÷ number of people in the group
- Median pay
- Middle value of the sorted pay list
- Quartile
- One of four equal-sized groups after ranking everyone by pay
Worked examples
24 employees, hourly pay
Men average £25.71 an hour and women £21.25, a mean gap of 17.3%. The medians are £23.88 and £20.25, a 15.2% median gap. Ranking all 24 people into quartiles of six, women make up two-thirds of the lowest-paid quarter but only a third of the highest-paid quarter.
Small team with one high earner
One $120,000 salary lifts the men’s average to $54,000 against $33,750 for women — a 37.5% mean gap. But the medians are $33,000 for men and $34,000 for women, so the median gap is −3.0%: the typical woman earns slightly more. This is why reports show both measures.
Ties across a quartile boundary
Four people are paid exactly 20, two men and two women, and they span the first and second quartiles. They are shared in proportion to their 50/50 mix, so the lowest quartile (the man on 10 plus one person on 20) is 25% women. Women’s median of 22.5 versus men’s 20 gives a −12.5% median gap.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between the mean and median gender pay gap?+
The mean gap compares average pay, so it is pulled up or down by very high or very low earners. The median gap compares the middle earner in each group and better reflects the typical employee. Large differences between the two usually mean pay is concentrated at the top or bottom.
Is the gender pay gap the same as equal pay?+
No. Equal pay means men and women doing the same or equivalent work must be paid the same, which is a legal requirement. The pay gap compares average pay across the whole workforce, so it can exist even when every job is paid fairly if men hold more of the senior, higher-paid roles.
Who has to report the gender pay gap in the UK?+
Employers in Great Britain with 250 or more employees on the snapshot date must publish six figures each year: mean and median hourly pay gaps, mean and median bonus gaps, the proportion of men and women receiving a bonus, and the proportion of women in each pay quartile.
Should I use hourly pay or annual salary?+
Hourly pay is better because it removes the effect of part-time working — otherwise a gap could simply reflect that more women work fewer hours. Official UK reporting uses ordinary hourly pay. Annual salaries can still be useful for an internal check if everyone is full time.
What does a negative pay gap mean?+
A negative gap means women’s mean or median pay is higher than men’s. It is reported the same way, as a minus percentage of men’s pay, and can happen in organisations where women hold more of the higher-paid roles.