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 the organisational 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 as of 31st March 2026, with the bonus gap data commencing for 12 months from 1st April 2025 to 31 March 2026.

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 different to 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 2026)

	Male	Female	Gap	Percentage
Mean hourly rate	£22.39	£20.88	£1.51	6.76%
Median hourly rate	£23.42	£19.77	£3.65	15.58%

In comparison to 2025, the mean hourly rate pay gap has decreased by 0.43% and the median hourly rate gap has reduced by 2.07%  This is a positive result for Lincolnshire Police when compared to 2024 figures that saw a minor increase in the hourly rate of pay gap.

2. Published salary quartile bands (officer and staff combined 2026)

	Lower	Lower-middle	Upper-middle	Upper
Male proportion	41.71%	48.18%	54.74%	65.51%
Female proportion	58.29%	51.82%	45.26%	34.49%

In the upper middle quartile, the female proportion shows a slight decrease on 2025 figures (2.00%). The upper quartile, lower middle quartile and lower quartile figures indicate a slight decrease in the female proportion when comparing to 2025 figures (1.33%, 0.05% and 0.41% respectively).

3. Published bonus information (officer and staff combined 2026)

	Male	Female	Gap	Percentage
Mean bonus	£318.17	£600.39	-£282.22	-88.70%
Median bonus	£175.00	£300.00	-£125.00	-71.43%
Proportion receiving a bonus	3.73%	5.09%	N/A	-1.36%

There has been increased in Female bonuses of 1.36% in comparison to 2025 figures, and the proportion of male colleagues overall that received a bonus has decreased by 1.59% in comparison to the previous year.

Additional mean and median information (Officer only 2026)

4. Additional mean and median information (officer only 2026)

	Male	Female	Gap	Percentage
Mean hourly rate	£23.66	£23.27	£0.40	1.68%
Median hourly rate	£24.17	£24.11	£0.06	0.25%

The mean hourly rate gender pay gap has decreased by 0.57% compared to 2025 so is comparable to the previous year but shows that the gender pay gap for hourly rate is decreasing.

5. Total employees - salary quartile bands (officer only 2026)

	Lower	Lower-middle	Upper-middle	Upper
Male proportion	60.49%	58.25%	73.43%	68.42%
Female proportion	39.51%	41.75%	26.57%	31.58%

The proportion of females in each quartile has risen with the exception of the lower quartile where it has dropped by 1.24% when compared to last year. The increases are: 1.00% (lower middle quartile), 1.23% (upper middle quartile) and 1.10% (upper quartile).  There are a significant number of male Officers in the Upper-middle and Upper quartiles compared to female officers.

6. Additional bonus information (officer only 2026)

	Male	Female	Gap	Percentage
Mean bonus	£217.19	£214.77	-£2.41	1.11%
Median bonus	£150.00	£187.50	-£37.50	25.00%
Proportion receiving a bonus	4.30%	5.53%	N/A	1.23%

Bonuses may be applied for work/attending incidents of an outstandingly demanding, unpleasant or important nature.  The gender pay gap for bonus has decreased significantly with more female officers receiving bonuses.

7. Additional mean and median information (staff only 2026)

	Male	Female	Gap	Percentage
Mean hourly rate	£20.07	£19.40	£0.67	3.34%
Median hourly rate	£19.63	£19.17	£0.46	2.34%

The gender hourly rate gap for staff is small, the mean percentage gap has increased by 0.73% and the median hourly rate has decreased by 0.89% in comparison to 2025.

8. Total employees - salary quartile bands (staff only 2026)

	Lower	Lower-middle	Upper-middle	Upper
Male proportion	30.42%	41.06%	40.68%	43.13%
Female proportion	69.58%	58.94%	59.32%	56.87%

The proportion of females in the lower, lower middle and upper quartiles has decreased by 0.02%, 2.46% and 1.22%, respectively. The proportion of females in the upper middle quartile has increased by 1.81% when compared to last year, reducing the salary pay gap overall.

9. Additional bonus information (staff only 2026)

	Male	Female	Gap	Percentage
Mean bonus	£611.93	£874.05	-£262.12	-42.84%
Median bonus	£500.00	£500.00	£0	0%
Proportion receiving a bonus	2.70%	4.82%	N/A	-2.13%

Bonuses may be applied for work/attending incidents of an outstandingly demanding, unpleasant or important nature.  The bonus data for staff is comparable to officers with higher bonus payments for female staff compared to male staff.

Summary

This is Lincolnshire Police’s tenth Gender Pay Gap Report. There has been a slight 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.  There have been some positive results with female colleagues’ bonus payments have increased in comparison to the previous year’s figures.

Our Resourcing Team has continued to work hard to engage with and recruit new police officers and staff from all under-represented backgrounds.  During 2025/26 this recruitment has increased, and will increase further during 2026/27 which provides opportunity for us to seek to address this.

There are 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. There have also been dedicated Women in Policing Events to support Continuous personal and professional development. Lincolnshire Police also endorses and fully supports their Women’s Inclusive Network (WIN) the Family Support Network, and the Menopause staff association.

Lincolnshire Police has committed to adopt a Menopause Action plan with the organisation that will be published in due course during 2026.  The purpose of the action plan will be to support and understand colleagues experiencing menopause to continue to perform to the best of their ability in an inclusive working environment. 

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.

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.

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.

The gender pay gap 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 59.32% of our Female Staff workforce are in the upper-middle salary range compared to 46.68% of male colleagues in that salary range, with similar numbers in the upper salary range.

For officers, the mean pay gap is currently 2.25%. The salary bands for male officers in the Upper-middle and Upper salary bands are significantly higher than female officers, however female officers in these salary bands has increased.  We will continue to work to identify opportunities to improve this position further.