Gender Pay Gap Report

What is the national picture?

The Government has committed to closing the gender pay gap within a generation. There is an expectation that where a gender pay gap exists, employers will take action to increase the number of females in senior positions through removing any glass ceiling and ensuring that their reward strategies, policies, practices and procedures reduce any gender pay gap and, in particular, remove any obstacles having a negative effect on
the pay of female employees (or potential employees) or from applying for jobs or promotion.

In 2025, the Office for National Statistics reported that the UK gender pay gap (median) for all employees decreased to 12.8% (from 13.1% in 2024), meaning that median pay for female employees was 12.8% lower than for male employees. This continues the national trend of a narrowing gender pay gap.

Over the last decade, the ONS reports that the median Gender Pay Gap has fallen by approximately a quarter among both full-time employees and all employees when grouped together.

In 2025, the gap between full-time employees was 6.9%, down from 7% in 2024. The gender pay gap for part-time employees was -2.9%, meaning that women in part-time employee jobs earned more than men in part-time employee jobs. This was a decrease from 2024, when it was -3.0%.

What about the leisure industry?

In the leisure industry, ONS data from 2025 shows that female ‘Sports and Leisure Assistants’ earn 3.2% more than men (using the median calculation).

Female ‘Leisure and Sport Managers’ earn 3.7% more than men (using the median calculation). This contrasts with the overall UK picture, where women earn less on median.

The reporting requirements

Any employer who has a headcount of 250 or more on their ‘snapshot date’ must comply with regulations on gender pay gap reporting.

The snapshot date for the reporting year 2025-2026 is 5th April 2025 and the deadline for publishing the data is 4th April 2026.

An employer must identify their ‘full pay relevant employees’ at the ‘snapshot date’. The list of full-pay relevant employees forms the basis for the gender pay gap calculations, except for bonus pay gap calculations.

Full-pay relevant employees are all employees who are employed by the employer on the snapshot date, who are paid their usual full basic pay during the pay period in which the snapshot date falls, or are paid less than their usual basic pay or none at all, during the pay period that includes the
snapshot date, if it is for reasons other than leave (for example because of irregular working hours). Full-pay-relevant employees are excluded if they are on any type of leave (for example, annual leave, maternity leave, sick leave, or a sabbatical) on the ‘snapshot date.’

The employer must report

The mean or the median?



The ONS prefers median earnings because the median is not affected by extreme values, such as changes in the earnings of small numbers of very high earners. However, as the mean gap captures the fact that the upper end of the earnings distribution is dominated nationally by men, the mean is an important measure of women’s labour market disadvantage.

Hourly pay quartiles

The proportion of male and female employees are split into quartile bands based on their hourly pay.

Women make up a slightly larger share of the lower-headcount workforce in 2025–26 than in 2024, rising from 59% to 61%, and this shift is reflected across most pay quarters. The upper quartile remains almost unchanged, with women holding around 70% of roles in both years. In the upper‑middle
and lower‑middle quartiles, there are small moves towards greater female representation compared with last year.

The biggest change is in the lower quartile, where the proportion of men has fallen from 59% to 52%, bringing the gender balance in this lowest‑paid group much closer to parity. Overall, this year, Abbeycroft has seen a slight strengthening of female representation across the pay structure, particularly
in the lower quartile.

Bonuses

Abbeycroft does not have a bonus scheme and has not paid any bonuses to staff falling into the scope of the snapshot date for 2025.

Therefore, Abbeycroft has not reported a gender bonus pay gap for 2025.

Commentary

Abbeycroft’s median gender pay gap of −2.54% is consistent with the wider leisure sector, where women typically earn slightly more than men, and stand in positive contrast to the national median pay gap of 12.8%, where women earn significantly less than men.

The 2026 gender pay gap figures continue to present a positive position for Abbeycroft, with both the mean and median gaps remaining negative, thereby favouring women.

The mean gap has reduced from -12.69% in 2025 to -6.86% in 2026, while the median gap has widened from -0.46% to -2.54%. This means that although the overall pay difference between men and women has moved slightly closer to parity at the mean level, the “typical” female employee now earns more than the typical male employee to a greater extent than last year.

A key factor influencing this year’s results is the change in overall workforce size and gender composition. The number of full‑pay relevant employees decreased from 351 to 336, and although the organisation has remained female‑majority, the female share shifted slightly from 59% to 61%. This means there are fewer men available to distribute across the quartiles. This contributed to the increased proportion of women in the lower quartile and small shifts elsewhere in the pay structure, which in turn affected both the mean and median pay gap results for 2026.

The most notable movement is in the lower quartile, where the proportion of women increased from 41% to 48%, while the proportion of men decreased accordingly. This rise in female representation in the lowest-paid roles puts downward pressure on the mean gender pay gap, contributing to the narrowing seen this year.

Women continue to hold the majority of roles across the upper, upper‑middle, and lower‑middle quartiles, reinforcing the widening of the median gap and indicating stability in women’s presence in higher-paid roles.

Report and data compiled by Melissa Eley, HR Manager
March 2025