Non-white employees earn £1.82 less per hour than white employees at Peterborough City Council
Figures published in a Peterborough City Council report revealed that non-white employees earned less on average than white employees at the authority.
The council is legally obliged to publish its gender pay gap data annually and its ethnicity pay gap data is voluntarily published alongside this.
A report highlighting the key pay gap statistics from last year will be presented to the council’s employment committee on Thursday, November 27.
One of the findings was that non-white employees earned on average £1.82 less per hour than white employees — an 8.4 per cent mean gap.
Explaining the pay gap, Christine Marshall, director of corporate services at Peterborough City Council, said: “While there is currently no legal requirement for large organisations to publish their ethnicity pay gap, we have chosen to do so voluntarily for the fourth consecutive year, as it believes this is a vital step in our ongoing commitment to ongoing transparency and advancing workplace equality.
“Our figures show that while there is a reported pay gap of £1.82 per hour (8.4 per cent), this has reduced from 9.6 per cent the previous year.
“It is also important to note that the figures may be distorted, as a significantly high proportion of employees choose not to disclose their ethnicity (507), which has an impact on the results.
“This increase in non-disclosure is linked to the implementation of a new HR and Payroll system that did not allow ethnicity data to transfer across platforms.
“While disclosure remains voluntary, we continue to engage with our workforce on the importance of providing this information to enable accurate reporting and support our commitment to equality and inclusion.
“Our job evaluation and recruitment processes are designed to be bias-free, ensuring that appointments are made solely based on requirements of the role.
“We are also continuing to expand our learning and development offer, creating more opportunities to support career progression and helping to reduce both gender and ethnicity pay gaps.”
Other key findings in the pay gap data included the fact that the mean gender pay gap increased from 5.2 per cent in 2024 to 6.7 per cent in 2025, which remained below the 2024 national figure of 12.9 per cent.
The median gender pay gap also rose from 4.9 per cent in 2024 to 7.1 per cent in 2025.
Equality statistics
Peterborough City Council’s employment committee will also be presented with an Annual Equalities Monitoring Report next week, which details the composition and diversity of Peterborough City Council’s workforce as of March 31, 2025.
According to the report, the council directly employed 1,935 staff, an increase from 1,589 the previous year
Women continued to make up the majority of the council’s workforce, comprising 73.33 per cent in 2025. This remained broadly consistent with previous years, showing a slight decrease from 73.44 per cent in 2024 and 73.93 per cent in 2023.
Staff from mixed and minority ethnic backgrounds made up 11.1 per cent of the workforce, down from 13.7 per cent in 2024.
The proportion of staff declaring a disability rose to 9.05 per cent in 2025, up from 5.14 per cent in 2024. This figure included only those who chose to disclose this information, according to the report.
Additionally, 31 new periods of maternity leave were recorded in 2024/25, with all employees returning to work following their leave.