Gender pay gap

Overview

Lincolnshire Police is obligated to publish statutory mean and median pay gap calculations on an annual basis to show what the pay gap is between male and female employees. This is in accordance with the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017.

In order to further develop Lincolnshire Police’s analysis of the pay gap between male and female colleagues, further calculations have been undertaken for police officers and police staff separately which are detailed below.

The calculations are based on Lincolnshire Police data at 31 March 2025, with the bonus gap data commencing for 12 months from 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025.

Lincolnshire Police continues to seek to reduce the gender pay gap between male and female colleagues and remains committed to ensure fairness and inclusivity in the organisation.

Gender pay gap explained

The current pay scales for both police officers and police staff are determined nationally. It is important to recognise that gender pay reporting is not the same as equal pay. Equal pay is ensuring equal pay for equal work. Gender pay reporting compares hourly rates of pay and any bonuses all employees may receive by gender, seeking to expose any imbalance due to gender. 

The gender pay gap reporting is calculated using standard statutory methodologies of mean and median as follows:

Mean gender pay gap reporting

This is the difference between the average hourly earnings of men and women. This is calculated by adding up the hourly wages of men and the same for women. 

The mean pay gap is the difference between the two mean averages for men and women.

Median gender pay gap reporting

This is the difference between the middle value of hourly earnings for men and women. This is calculated by listing all of the hourly wages of men and women separately in ascending order to find the middle value. 

The median pay gap is the difference between the two middle values for men and women.

Gender pay gap reporting

1. Published mean and median information (officer and staff combined 2025)

	Male	Female	Gap	Percentage
Mean hourly rate	£21.22	£19.69	£1.53	7.19%
Median hourly rate	£22.72	£18.71	£4.01	17.65%

In comparison to 2024, the mean hourly rate pay gap has increased by a small proportion of 0.75% and the median hourly rate gap has reduced by 0.66%

2. Published salary quartile bands (officer and staff combined 2025)

	Lower	Lower-middle	Upper-middle	Upper
Male proportion	42.12%	48.23%	52.74%	66.84%
Female proportion	57.88%	51.77%	47.26%	33.16%

In the lower quartile, the lower middle quartile and upper middle quartiles the female proportion shows a slight decrease on 2024 figures (1.48%, 1.15% and 1.07% respectively). The upper quartile figures indicate a 0.82% decrease in the female proportion when comparing to 2024 figures.

3. Published bonus information (officer and staff combined 2025)

	Male	Female	Gap	Percentage
Mean bonus	£329.49	£518.06	-£188.57	-57.23%
Median bonus	£150.00	£408.06	-£258.06	-172.04%
Proportion receiving a bonus	5.32%	3.73%	N/A	1.59%

4. Additional mean and median information (officer only 2025)

	Male	Female	Gap	Percentage
Mean hourly rate	£22.54	£22.04	£0.51	2.25%
Median hourly rate	£23.22	£23.14	£0.08	0.34%

The mean hourly rate gender pay gap has increased slightly by 0.04% compared to 2024 so is comparable to the previous year.

5. Total employees - salary quartile bands (officer only 2025)

	Lower	Lower-middle	Upper-middle	Upper
Male proportion	59.25%	59.25%	74.66%	69.52%
Female proportion	40.75%	40.75%	25.34%	30.48%

The total male new Police Officer recruits in 2024 account for 65% of appointments which will be a key reason for this higher percentage in the lower salary band.  The gender pay gap is most significant in the upper-middle quartile which is 18.47% high than the previous year, with the lower-middle and upper salary band quartiles being broadly comparable to the previous years’ figures.

6. Additional bonus information (officer only 2025)

	Male	Female	Gap	Percentage
Mean bonus	£165.85	£162.50	-£3.35	2.02%
Median bonus	£150.00	£150.00	-£0	0%
Proportion receiving a bonus	5.35%	2.99%	N/A	2.35%

Bonuses may be applied for work/attending incidents of an outstandingly demanding, unpleasant or important nature.  The majority of these were applied to Police Officers within Local Policing and Crime where the ratio of Male Officers is higher.

7. Additional mean and median information (staff only 2025)

	Male	Female	Gap	Percentage
Mean hourly rate	£18.78	£18.29	£0.49	2.61%
Median hourly rate	£18.40	£17.81	£0.59	3.23%

The gender hourly rate gap for staff is small, the mean percentage gap has decreased slightly by 0.02% and the median hourly rate has increased by 1.15% in comparison to 2024.

8. Total employees - salary quartile bands (staff only 2025)

	Lower	Lower-middle	Upper-middle	Upper
Male proportion	30.40%	38.60%	42.49%	41.91%
Female proportion	69.60%	61.40%	57.51%	58.09%

The lower quartile for female staff has increased by 3.31% and by 10.55% in the lower middle quartile. The upper middle, and upper quartiles are comparable to 2023.

9. Additional bonus information (staff only 2025)

	Male	Female	Gap	Percentage
Mean bonus	£634.44	£670.44	-£36.00	-5.67%
Median bonus	£500.00	£500.00	£0	0%
Proportion receiving a bonus	5.26%	4.17%	N/A	1.10%

Bonuses may be applied for work/attending incidents of an outstandingly demanding, unpleasant or important nature. 

Summary

This is Lincolnshire Police’s ninth Gender Pay Gap Report. There has been a small increase in the mean hourly rate by 0.75% and we are pleased to report that we have seen positive results, with a reduction of 0.66% overall median pay gap this year for police officers and staff.

There are a small number of Police Officers and Police Staff that received bonuses in the reporting period. These are normally paid for incidents involving work of a particularly demanding and/or unpleasant nature, in line with the national regulations. No concerns have been identified with regards to the gender pay gap for bonuses.

Our Resourcing Team has continued to work hard to engage with and recruit new police officers and staff from all under-represented backgrounds. The percentage of new female Police Officer recruits was 35% in the reporting period, however we saw significant less recruitment due to a cancelled police officer intake in March 2025. During 2025/26 this recruitment has increased back to normal levels and will increase further during 2026/27 which provides opportunity for us to seek to address this.

Further opportunities for female Police Officers and staff to progress within the organisation have been undertaken including Future Leader Programmes, Lead, Engage and Develop (LEAD) programme, Coaching and Mentoring, Fast Track Schemes and Detective Pathways.

Lincolnshire Police also endorses their Women’s Inclusive Network (WIN) who have led Women in Leadership Events, targeted at women who aspire to be leaders to support their career goals and continuous personal development. The Learning and Development Team have also led Senior Women in policing CPD events.

Workforce information is monitored and reviewed by Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Board, chaired by the Deputy Chief Constable for Lincolnshire Police and attend by a member of the Independent Advisory Group. This is to ensure positive progress is made to consider and implement initiatives to further enhance this. This now includes undertaking annual Gender Analysis of Police Officer Promotions, and by encouraging any identified under-represented groups to apply for roles.

As an organisation we remain determined to tackle the under-representation of women through all grades and ranks and provide every opportunity for women to progress. The Force remains committed to ensuring fairness and inclusivity within Lincolnshire Police and acknowledge the many benefits this brings to our organisation.

This year, additional analysis has been undertaken to break down the gender pay gap for our officer and staff workforce separately due to the potential impact of the different pay and grading structures, and to allow further consideration of specific areas of targeted activity.

This analysis has demonstrated that the pay gap is lower when considering the officer and staff workforce separately. For Police Staff we have a 2.61% Mean pay gap, with 52% of our Female Staff workforce employed at a Senior Grade. For officers, the mean pay gap is currently 2.25%. We continue to work to identify opportunities to improve this position further, through the development of a gender action plan.

Report written by Claire McWilliams, Workforce Planner and Wendy Drury, Senior HR Partner