This week, we reported our gender pay gap for the 2024-2025 tax year. The report offers a snapshot of Multiverse's gender pay gap on 05 April 2025, the government's date for private sector reporting. At that time, we had 570 employees in the UK.
Headlines
- Our mean pay gap decreased in 2025 to 10%, which remains lower than the average gender pay gap in comparable sectors.
- Our mean bonus gap declined from 33.2% to 21.5%, and our median bonus gap remains low at 4.5%. With a similar proportion of men (77.5%) and women (78.2%) receiving a bonus during this period, this indicates that bonus distribution across the organisation is largely equitable.
- Women continue to excel in our Sales organisation, representing 80% of our top five highest-earning commission roles at the snapshot date, despite making up approximately 30% of the total Sales team.
The Gender Pay Gap explained
First - some technical bits. The gender pay gap is the difference between the average hourly pay of men and women within an organisation. The UK government requires businesses with 250 or more employees to report on the following metrics each year:
- Hourly pay gap - mean and median
- Bonus pay gap - mean and median
- Proportion of men and women receiving a bonus
- Proportion of men and women in different earnings quarters
The gender pay gap is distinct from unequal pay, which is illegal in the UK and has been since 1970. At Multiverse, we take active steps to ensure there is equal pay for equal work at all levels within our business, for example regular pay audits and benchmarking. Reporting on our gender pay gap is an important moment for us to reflect on the initiatives we introduce to embed fairness and equality of opportunity in our business, and whether these are successful.
A note - HMRC specifies that Gender Pay Gap data sets should only include people who identify as a man or woman. Multiverse employees can voluntarily complete a series of census questions through our HR Information System, including their gender identity. To align with HMRC's guidelines, we have excluded any employee who has self-identified as 'Non-binary' or 'Another gender identity', although this approach is not in line with our internal pay audit practices or overall approach to gender identity and equality.
Key Figures
As a reminder, this report is retrospective and covers the period between 6th April 2024 - 5th April 2025, with a snapshot date of 05 April 2025.
Pay Gap
In the UK, Multiverse's mean gender pay gap was 10%. This means that the average hourly pay of a man at Multiverse was 10% higher than the average hourly pay of a woman.
Multiverse's median pay gap was 13.3%. The median pay gap is the difference between the salary in the middle of the range of all employees who are men, compared to the middle salary among all employees who are women. At Multiverse, the median man earned 13.3% higher than the median woman. The reason we look at the median is because it reduces the impact of any outlier values.
According to the House of Commons Library (ONS), the 2025 UK median gender pay gap for reporting employers was 11% (source, p.12). Research also tells us that the mean gender pay gap in both the Technology and Professional Services sectors is approximately 15% (source), which are the sectors that offer the best comparisons to Multiverse. However, recent industry research suggests that for some areas of the UK technology sector, the gender pay gap is as high as 17.5%, with 42% of top tech firms seeing their gap rise or stay the same since 2021 (source).
Bonus Gap
In the reporting period, 77.9% of Multiverse's UK employees received a bonus - 78.2% of women, and 77.5% of men.
Our mean gender bonus gap declined from 33.2% in 2024 to 21.5% in 2025. This means that on average across the 12 months leading up to 05 April 2025, the bonus of a man at Multiverse was 21.5% higher than the bonus of a woman.
Our median gender bonus gap increased from -16.5% in 2024 to 4.5% in 2025. This means, the median man at Multiverse had a bonus 4.5% higher than the median woman. Our median bonus gap differs significantly from the mean gap because the median factors out some of the impact of outlier bonus amounts. There's higher year-on-year variability in the bonus gap because of the performance-related nature of our bonus and commission plans. We will explore this in greater detail, later in the report.
Across all reporting employers in 2025, on average, 38% of women and men received bonuses, and in 64% of reporting employers, median bonus pay was higher for men than for women (source, p.12-13).
Earnings Quarters
From 2024 to 2025, we saw an increased proportion of women in the middle quarters, and a decreased proportion of women in the upper and lower hourly pay quarters.
Overall we have more men in our highest paid roles and more women in our lowest paid roles. Over-representation of men in high-earning roles is a systemic driver of the gender pay gap; it is at these levels where the most significant pay gaps exist and they have been the slowest to narrow (source, p.31). While this remains true for Multiverse, we have made progress and continue to work towards a gender-balanced organisation.
Gender breakdown by pay quartile
Explaining our Data
We are pleased that our mean gender pay gap has decreased and remains lower than the average for the UK Tech and Professional sectors. In pursuit of this goal, we will continue to work on identifying the causes of our pay gaps and how we can close these. This section sets out some key factors which have influenced our pay gap data this year.
Impacts on Pay
Sales Commissions: Commissions and other bonuses paid in the month of April are included in our calculation of an employee's ordinary pay, as required by the UK government. At Multiverse, the only bonuses paid in April are Sales commissions. On the snapshot date, 72.5% of our Account Executives (the quota-carrying Sales roles) were men. However, 80% of our top 5 highest-earning Sales reps, based on April commission, were women. This reflects the overall industry picture; women make up approximately 30% of all Sales roles however have higher quota attainment (source). It is important to note that commission payments reflect individual in-year performance, and this picture can change year-on-year.
Distribution and Representation: In 2025, we saw decreased representation of women in both our upper and lower pay quarters. Typically, a reduction of women in the lower pay quarter is a positive driver for closing the gap, as it indicates fewer women are concentrated in the lowest-paid positions. This contributed to the decrease in our mean pay gap.
However, our median gender pay gap increased. This is because the decrease in representation of women at the upper pay quarter (which corresponds to Director level and above) was more significant than the reduction at the junior levels. This shifted the middle salary point, so that the median woman at Multiverse was paid less than the median man. While our Executive team remained gender-balanced in April 2025 - a benchmark we are proud of compared to the FTSE 350 average (source) - these roles are the highest-paid in the organisation. As outliers, they impact the mean but are excluded from the median calculation. Effectively, while we have improved the gender balance in our entry level roles, the reduction of women in the senior leadership layers immediately below the Executive level remains the primary driver of our median gap.
Impacts on Bonuses
Our mean bonus gap decreased to 21.5% in 2025. While moving in the right direction, it remains high due to the over-representation of men in senior roles where bonus potential is higher.
In contrast, our median bonus gap was 4.5%. As the median figures lessen the impact of outlier figures on each end of the spectrum, it provides a clearer picture for the typical Multiverse employee. There is an inherent variability in our bonus pay gap figures because of our "Pay for Performance" Reward philosophy. Because payouts are tied to individual performance ratings, we typically see more significant year-on-year changes in the bonus gap; this is expected and reflects the performance-driven nature of our plans.
However, a low median bonus gap suggests that at the mid-point of Multiverse, men and women are receiving similar bonus amounts. This indicates that for the typical employee, our performance framework and bonus policy is being consistently and equitably applied.
Our Approach to Closing the Gender Pay Gap
We believe that increasing rigour and specificity across our People processes is the most effective way to ensure fairness and transparency. By standardising how we evaluate performance and reward our talent, we aim to "level the playing field" and reduce the impact of unconscious bias in decision-making.
Starting in April 2025, we have undertaken a year-long review and evolution of our performance framework to further increase this rigour. While the implementation of this new framework - which covers everything from hiring to internal performance assessment - is outside the scope of this retrospective report, it represents our ongoing commitment to embedding equity into every People process.
We believe our data-driven approach to pay and performance across the 2024-2025 period has been key to our progress:
- Evidence-Based Reward: We have continued to mature our 'Pay for Performance' philosophy to ensure all compensation decisions are equitable and evidence-based. Central to this is our structured bonus model, which ensures each performance rating correlates to a single, standardised individual performance multiplier. By using a structured approach that removes individual discretion from bonus calculations, we reduce the risk of subjectivity and unequal payouts. We believe the impact of this consistency is reflected in our low 2025 median bonus gap.
- Robust Calibration: Our performance review process relies on multiple rounds of calibration across different levels of leadership to ensure ratings are applied consistently and fairly. Unlike many organisations, we do not use a forced distribution curve. Research indicates that forced rankings may penalise high-performing talent from under-represented groups (source). Instead, we use a shared set of criteria to provide a data-led foundation for measurement. The calibration process then allows us to integrate stakeholder feedback and self-input to ensure we have mitigated bias in the assessment process. This allows us to reward true high performance and identify where support is needed, without penalising employees through a purely formulaic approach.
- Data Oversight: During each cycle, we provide an additional layer of scrutiny by reviewing performance ratings against diversity data at a macro level to check for potential unconscious or structural bias. We move beyond a department-led view to specifically scrutinise outlier distributions and ensure that every area of the business has applied our criteria fairly and consistently. By maintaining this macro-level oversight, we ensure that performance outcomes are a true reflection of contribution, providing a more accurate foundation for pay and progression decisions.
Conclusion
While the 2024-2025 gender pay gap report provides an important annual snapshot, our focus on organisational fairness is a continuous priority. As we continue to scale and grow at pace, we are committed to the robust systems and processes that allow us to find and reward talent from all backgrounds, ensuring that fairness remains fundamental to how we operate at Multiverse.
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