Funeral Partners welcomes narrowing gender pay gap

Funeral Partners is pleased with its latest set of gender pay results from 6 April 2022 to 5 April 2023, which showed the gap in pay and reward metrics between genders “generally narrowing”, along with the median hourly pay rate increasing by 10% year-on-year. 

Median hourly rate of pay between male and female employees as of 5 April 2023 stood at 4.2%, down from 6.3% in the same month of 2022, with men being paid £13.55 versus £12.98 for women. 

Meanwhile, the mean hourly rate of pay between the two groups as of 5 April 2023 stood at 13.8%, level with the same month of 2022, with the mean hourly rate of pay for men being £16.38 versus £14.12 for women. 

With more males in the upper pay quartiles, this contributed to the hourly pay rates for males being higher than for females in Funeral Partners. 

In an effort to see a more even distribution by gender  in the quartiles, Funeral Partners has split the upper pay quartile to become more balanced between genders over the last three years. 

The gender gap was also affected by a lower quartile role within the business, which is more typically filled by males. This in turn has a scope for optional overtime, which will increase the hourly total pay at the snapshot date for male relative to females.

The group expects to further improve its gender pay positions in the coming years.

In addition, the group reported that its workforce increased around 5% during the period to a total of 889 staff, of which 455 are male and 434 are female.  

According to the funeral group, this is a reflection of natural growth within the business and acquisitions completed in the 12-month period since the previous snapshot date. 

Within the growth in the workforce year-on-year, this also includes a greater increase of 17%  in the number of female employees. 

Funeral Partners, which manages over 250 funeral homes across the country, has been reporting formally on gender pay levels since 2018.