Our Gender Pay Gap Report 2023

8 May 2023

At Swim England, our vision of ‘Championing a healthy and successful nation through swimming’ is wholly inclusive. We believe all of our people deserve to be treated fairly and consistently whatever their background or protected characteristic. As such, we are committed to ensuring equal and fair pay for comparable roles and we will always strive to continuously ensure there is equality.

In preparing this annual report, we have assessed the reward received by everyone who worked with and provided services for us personally (employees, casual workers and self-employed contractors) in the April 2023 pay month. In this month, Swim England had 527 workers who received full pay. We had an average (mean) gender pay gap of -3 per cent, and a mid-point (median) gender pay gap of 0 per cent. An average gender pay gap of -0.3% signifies that, on average, we paid slightly more to female workers compared to male workers, within this pay period.

Download a PDF of our 2023 report.

Gender pay gap

Difference between male and female	Average (mean)	Mid-point (median)
Gender Pay Gap	-3%	0%

Pay quartiles

During the April 2023 pay period, of the workers’ pay, there was an overall gender split of 59 per cent female and 41 per cent male. These quartile graphs demonstrate the proportion of females and males in each pay quartile, with 132 workers in the Lower Quartile, 142 in the Lower Middle, 121 in the Upper Middle and 132 in the Upper Quartile.
Swim England gender pay gap pay quartiles

Bonus data

Swim England does not traditionally pay bonuses, where they are paid; they are paid to our employees. Two payments in the reporting period of May 2022 – April 2023 are considered bonuses and are included in this report. The two payments made were each under £1,000 and were both paid to female employees.

	Number of employees paid a bonus	Percentage
Female employees	2	0.4%
Male employees	0	0%

How we will make a difference

Our ambition is to provide fair rates of pay that are comparable to other employers in sport. To inform our work in this space, we are part of the Sport’s National Governing Body Pay Club, facilitated by our reward partner Reward Connected.

In April 2023, we implemented a new pay framework for our employed workforce. Each job role was evaluated based on a widely recognised system and we developed broad pay ranges underpinned by charity and sports sector market data.

Through this journey we have committed to pay transparency, with briefing videos and documents produced to inform our employed team of the framework and where their role and pay sits within it. We plan to continue assessing the framework and work towards a system where employees can increase their earnings through performance and career development opportunities.

We are a real living wage employer, and ensure all of our workers receive a fair rate of pay for the work undertaken, regardless of gender or any other characteristic protected by law.

In May 2023, we launched our new 10-year ‘Access Aquatics’ strategy. Our mission is to make our sports and activities accessible, inclusive and safe for everyone. We will champion our sports and work with and empower our partners to tackle inequalities; remove the barriers to participation currently experienced by people and communities; provide a governance structure that ensures great, safe experiences and enable everyone to reach their full potential in the water.

For everyone to benefit from aquatics, there is much work to do to engage groups such as people from ethnically diverse communities, people within the LGBTQ+ community, disabled people and those with long-term health conditions and those from lower socio-economic groups who we know are under-represented within the aquatics community. Whilst we have taken action to better understand the needs of these groups, it is a journey and we are at the beginning.

We are committed to better understanding the needs of these particular groups and taking positive action to address the issues, to tackle inequalities and drive meaningful change. We have developed broad principles that will set out how we will approach this important work, the impact of which will be measured through our Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan.

Similarly, there is also much more to do to ensure the culture of aquatics at all levels is one that has inclusivity, welfare and safeguarding at its heart. By focusing our efforts and working with our partners and stakeholders we will open up Access to Aquatics for All.