The University has published the latest pay gap data covering gender, ethnicity, disability and intersectional (gender and ethnicity) pay gaps. While reporting the gender pay gap is a UK Government requirement, analysing and sharing our pay gap data reflects our ongoing commitment to advancing equality at Sussex.
Understanding pay gaps
Pay gaps measure the difference in earnings between different groups within an organisation. They are assessed using both the mean pay gap (average hourly pay difference) and the median pay gap (middle hourly rate difference). It is important to note that pay gaps differ from equal pay, which ensures men and women receive the same pay for equivalent work.
Pay gaps are not, in themselves, evidence of unlawful discrimination, but rather of potential structural and systemic barriers. Equally, whilst an important indicator, the elimination of pay gaps does not guarantee that there are no structural barriers for a group.
Gender pay gap
In 2025, the University's mean gender pay gap increased by 1.1 percentage points to 15.5%, while the median gender pay gap rose by 2.7 percentage points to 15.1%. This means that, despite an overall trend showing the gender pay gap is reducing over time, we have not yet met the highly ambitious target to halve the 2018 gender pay gap but remain committed to doing so.
Vice-Chancellor, Sasha Roseneil, said:
“At the University of Sussex, we are striving to create an environment in which every staff member can achieve their goals, develop their potential, and be themselves. We embrace diversity in all its forms - background, identity, belief, thought, discipline, and method.
“Reducing pay gaps is a crucial part of our vision because we want to ensure that all staff are rewarded fairly and equitably.”
The key driver for pay gaps at Sussex is the distribution of staff across pay grades. This year’s gender pay gap increase - the first since 2020 - stems from growth in Professional Services staff numbers, while academic staff numbers have remained stable. Academic roles, on average, have higher pay grades than Professional Services staff, and there are more women than men in the Professional Services staff group.
The proportion of women academics in the top pay quartile has increased again this year, to 42%, though an increase in the proportion of men in the mid pay quartiles caused a slight increase in the mean pay gap for the academic group.
Actions underway to address the gender pay gap include:
- developing positive action initiatives for women
- developing clear career progression pathways for underrepresented groups
- ensuring pay equity audits inform institutional policy changes
- continuously strengthening fair recruitment practices and enhancing gender balance in hiring panels
- reviewing flexible working policies to support career progression.
Ethnicity pay gap
The mean ethnicity pay gap for 2025 has decreased to -3.7% (median is -3.0%), which indicates an apparent pay gap in favour of staff from minority ethnic groups.
Overall, 18% of Sussex staff are from minority ethnic backgrounds but 69% of those staff are academics who, on average, earn a higher salary. This leads to underrepresentation in the lower pay quartiles and the overall pay gap figure apparently being in favour of minority ethnic staff.
When Professional Services and academic groups are separated out, a mean ethnicity pay gap in favour of white staff is evident in the academic staff group, with a pay gap of 6.6% (up from 4.1% last year). The mean pay gap for Professional Services staff has reduced to almost zero this year (-0.3% in favour of racially minoritised staff) due to even distribution across the pay quartiles.
Actions underway to address the ethnicity pay gap include:
- transparent pay, benefits, and promotion criteria
- increasing MyView equality data completion rates
- enhancing fair recruitment processes for acting/interim roles, including search agency expectations
- launching a new digital HR system to improve data quality and inform actions
- developing and implementing a positive action programme targeting Black women.
Intersectional pay gap
The University has also published our ethnicity and gender intersectional pay gap for the second year. This shows that gender is the prevailing factor in pay gaps, which endure for women regardless of ethnicity.
The largest pay gap is for Black women, and this has increased by 1.6 percentage points from the previous reporting year to 23.5%. The pay gaps for white women and Asian women have also increased from the previous year to 15.9% and 15.3% respectively. Targeted positive action initiatives are in development.
David Ruebain, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Culture, Equality and Inclusion and Chair of the Race Equality Charter Self-Assessment Team (RECSAT) said:
"The reduction to almost zero of the mean pay gap for racially minoritised staff within Professional Services demonstrates progress both in terms of representation of staff in this group as well as even distribution across the pay quartiles. The ethnicity and gender intersectional pay gap does, however, highlight ongoing challenges, as well as offering further insights into areas of disadvantage, enabling us to develop targeted approaches to address these challenges and work towards eliminating inequality at Sussex."
Disability pay gap
For disability, Sussex has a mean pay gap of 17.2%, which has decreased by 0.3 percentage points from last year. The median pay gap is 13.5%, an increase of 2.4 percentage points from last year. This is due to the uneven distribution of disabled staff through the pay quartiles (with 8% in the top pay quartile with a known disability and 20% in the bottom pay quartile).
Actions underway to address the disability pay gap include:
- developing a positive action initiative for a Disabled Senior Leaders Programme
- monitoring completion rates for mandatory and recommended online EDI training, including Disability Essentials, to boost compliance
- reviewing the effectiveness of our identity-based mentoring scheme
- Continuing to develop improvements through the Workplace Adjustments Working Group and to embed the re-launched Workplace Adjustment Toolkit.
Executive Director of HR, Colin Shipp said:
“Given our commitment to equality and diversity, including our current action plans focused on driving improvements, it is disappointing to see increases in our pay gaps. Such pay gaps demonstrate the importance of tackling systemic issues such as occupational segregation to deliver long term substantive change. As we look ahead to consider actions needed, at the heart of our work and thinking is our core belief that providing an inclusive workplace for our employees is fundamental. We will develop a People and Culture Strategic Plan in the coming year which will include actions to deliver improvements in our pay gaps. This plan will underpin delivery of the University's ambitions set out in the Sussex 2035 strategy.”
If you have any questions, please contact the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Team at: edi.unit@sussex.ac.uk.
Further information
You can view all pay gap reports on the EDI webpages.
Read more about work underway to address inequalities, including pay gaps: