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Gender pay gap reporting

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    What is the gender pay gap?

    The gender pay gap shows the difference between the average pay of men and women. Gender pay gap reporting is intended to spur organisations into ensuring that their working culture and environment is supportive of gender equality. The gender pay gap should not be confused with equal pay, which is governed by the Equality Act 2010.

    We welcome the opportunity to report on our gender pay gap as doing so supports our goal to build and maintain an equitable and inclusive culture at MSI.

    Our gender pay gap

    In line with reporting requirements, our gender pay gap figures are based on data from 5th April 2022.  

    The gender pay gap was calculated based on 671 MSI employees in the UK. This included 480 people working for MSI’s UK operation, which focuses on providing NHS-funded abortion services through our network of clinics, and 198 people in the London Support Office supporting the work of our programmes in 37 countries. Our workforce is predominantly (83%) female, and we have more women than men at every pay quartile and level. 

    These two workforces are reported together under a single legal entity. They are, however, two separate workforces with distinct structures and so we have provided an analysis of the gender pay gaps in both.

    Our combined median gender pay gap for these two groups is 33.3%, the median pay gap for our UK-based global support office workforce is -5.6%, while the median pay gap for our UK healthcare operation is 32.8%.

    The majority (71.5%) of our UK-based workforce are employed in our UK Division and so our combined figures for MSI are weighted towards the figures from the UK clinical operations.

    Access our full gender pay gap report here

    MSI London Support Office

    MSI’s London Support Office provides strategic and technical support to our programmes around the world. The workforce was made up of 66% female team members and there was a majority of women at every pay quartile and in senior leadership positions.  

    In 2022, our median pay gap for the London Support Office was -5.6%. In the period since we began reporting our gender pay gap, the median gap has reduced from 12.2% to -5.6%. 

    MSI UK: our UK healthcare operation

    Our UK clinics division provides NHS-funded abortion and contraception services through a network of centres in England. It operates under a separate structure to the London Support Office, with the UK Managing Director reporting to our Global CEO. 

    In 2022, the majority (89%) of our workforce in the UK was female and there were more women than men in each pay quartile. 

    The median gender pay gap in the UK Division for 2022 was 32.8%. While more than half (69%) of our employees in higher paid medical roles were women, there was a significantly greater proportion of women in lower paid clinical and non-clinical client-facing roles, including nurses, healthcare assistants and call centre operatives (95%). 

    We are proud that the number of women in medical roles exceeds national trends, and we believe that this is in part due to our ability to offer flexible working, specifically within our early medical abortion team. However, we know that there is a structural underrepresentation of women in senior clinical roles throughout abortion care and we will continue to take steps to train and support women to work in senior roles in this specialism. 

    Our commitment to gender equality

    Gender equality is foundational to our mission, and we are focused on ensuring that there are no barriers or biases in place at MSI that deny equality of opportunity to women or any other group in society. 

    Since we began reporting our gender pay gap in 2017, the combined median figures, as well as those for our London Support Office and MSI UK workforces have reduced, in part thanks to the activity outlined in our gender pay gap report.  

    While our median pay gap for our London Support Office now sits at -5.6%, the gap within MSI UK remains higher at 32.8%.  

    This is predominantly due to structural issues, which require longer-term change within institutions across the UK healthcare sector.  

    We are committed to being part of that change, and will continue to work with partners, professional bodies and government departments to address this challenge over the years ahead. 


    You can read more about our commitments to gender equity at MSI in our ten-year strategy: MSI 2030: Your Body, Your Choice, Your Future