Gender Pay Gap Report 2024

By law, men and women must receive equal pay for the same or broadly similar work, work rated as equivalent under a job evaluation scheme or work of equal value. We have a clear policy of paying our colleagues equally for the same or equivalent work.

Our median gender pay gap has reduced since the 2023 report. Our mean gender pay gap has increased slightly since the 2023 report, and has remained steady since we started reporting in 2017. We consider that the median figures are more representative of what our people actually get paid, and we are pleased to see this reducing further.

Since we started reporting in 2017 we have seen a 13% reduction in our median gender pay gap from a reported pay gap of 45% in 2017 to 32% in 2024, and a 2% reduction in 2024 as compared to 2023. We remain committed to ensuring that our colleagues are paid fairly for the work that they do. We remain confident that our gender pay gap does not stem from paying women differently for the same or equivalent value work, rather, it reflects the type of role that our female colleagues predominantly work in and continues to be impacted by historic access to the legal profession for women, the practical impact of this is that there are fewer more experienced female solicitors than there are male within our business.

We are proud of our commitment to fairness and equality to all of our colleagues and we are continuing to make significant progress in eroding historical gender pay gaps. This is demonstrated by the fact that 67% of those promoted in the reporting period were female, and 76% of those promoted to Partner or Senior Associate were female. We continue to promote on merit alone rather than tenure or other factors, which has resulted in a greater proportion of promotions for female colleagues as compared to male across the board.

This year, we have completed a more detailed analysis of the pay gap by reference to job group and found that our pay gap is most significant within our Partner group. This was as expected as there is a significant range of experience within this group, with some recently promoted to Partner, and others having been in the position for a decade or more. Of those Partners who have a professional qualification (noting that we employ non-legal professionals alongside our lawyers) post-qualification experience (PQE) ranges significantly, from 0 to 45 years.
We reviewed the quartile that our Partners fell into for their hourly pay, comparing this to their number of years Post Qualification Experience and hourly charge out rate. The comparison showed a direct correlation between an individual’s experience, charge out rate, and hourly pay.

As expected, based on the demographics of the legal profession in general, we have a greater proportion of male colleagues who have more PQE within this group, and while there are exceptions to this, it is reasonable to expect that those with more experience will, generally speaking, have a higher hourly rate of pay. While this data is assuring, we are not complacent, and we will continue to analyse our pay data by reference to job group as a check that decisions around remuneration are being considered fairly and without any reference to gender.

We also remain committed to being a family friendly employer, matching the pay available for those on maternity leave and shared parental leave, and accommodating a wide variety of flexible working arrangements, with 20% of the workforce working part time in the reporting period.

While it is still the case that a greater proportion of women as compared to men work part time, we seek to ensure there is no impact on salary resulting from working part time hours.

The promotions data does not include data about promotions within firms acquired by Knights prior to the acquisition date as historic data is not gathered except for the award of training contracts, which is included. Nor does promotions data include details regarding any changes to job titles arising as a direct consequence of transferring to Knights and alignment to our title structure or arising due to someone accepting a new role on acquisition. As is clear from the charts below, a greater number of female colleagues have been promoted than male colleagues in both Client Services and Business Services roles.

We take care in ensuring fairness in our review of remuneration across our business; as our colleagues do not have financial targets, pay increases are awarded based on merit, taking into account the overall contribution made to our business. Feedback from our colleagues has been consistently in favour of salary reviews to reflect performance rather than using set objective criteria or pay grades. Colleagues are invited to raise questions around any decisions about remuneration without fear of reproach, and we pride ourselves on our transparent and even-handed approach to remuneration across our business.

When acquiring other businesses, we take particular care when reviewing the salaries offered, and we seek to adjust where appropriate to ensure that colleagues are rewarded appropriately for the work they do, including performance against non-financial measures and taking into account market rates where relevant. This process generally takes place in the 12 months following an acquisition to ensure that a fair assessment can be made.

As a general rule, we do not pay bonuses as we prefer to pay a higher non-discretionary salary. We do however offer an incentive scheme for the introduction of new colleagues to Knights, and the increased number of bonuses reflects the success of this scheme.

Statistics in this section were calculated by reference to our population of relevant employees as defined by the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017 (Relevant Employees).

Overall, inclusive of bonus payments and referral fees earned,5.2% of male and 3.0% of female colleagues received a bonus or referral fee in the reporting period, together representing 3.7% of our Relevant Employees population.

0.64% of male and 0.08% of all female colleagues received a bonus payment in the reporting period, and 1.2% of male and 1.83% of female colleagues received a referral fee for the successful introduction of a colleague.

Bonus Payments accounted for 0.03% of our total wages and salary costs for the financial year ending 30 April 2024 (figure taken from our Annual Report for the financial year ending 30 April 2024).

Bonus payments within the reporting period relate mainly to colleague referral fees. Only one bonus payment related to performance in the reporting year, and that was awarded to a female colleague, the remainder were retention bonus payments related to an acquisition; therefore, the following figures are not considered representative of the approach to the award of performance related bonus payments at Knights, which are very rare. The mean overall bonus pay gap was 89% and the median overall bonus pay gap was 50%. The mean referral fee pay gap was -36% and the mean bonus payment fee pay gap was 97%, the median referral fee gap was 50% and the median bonus gap was 80%.

Where a contractual right to a bonus is inherited on acquisition of another business, we usually seek to buy out this right and instead reward those colleagues through a guaranteed salary at a higher level.