PRS For Music has revealed its gender pay gap figures for 2018.
Unlike most other major music industry companies and organisations, the collection society has issued the data ahead of the April 4 deadline.
The music industry’s gender pay results largely made uncomfortable reading last year when the biz was first obliged to reveal its figures. PRS For Music performed less well than PPL – its JV licensing partner – in the results for 2017.
The previous PRS results showed a gender pay gap of 17.2% (mean) and 11.5% based on the median measure, which was not far off the national average.
In the new figures for 2018, PRS has made improvements. Its mean pay gap is 16.8%, while the median is 9.7%. The median result was lower than the UK national average hourly pay gap of 17.9%.
The proportion of PRS employees who received bonus pay was 79.6% for men and 79.4% for women. But the median bonus pay gap was 23.3% in favour of men.
In the upper pay quartile, 69.2% of PRS employees were male. In the lower quartile, that figure shrank to 55.6%.
We believe that real progress is achieved through influencing business culture
Pamela Harding
Pamela Harding, human resources director, said: “Although we have seen a slight improvement, we have a continuing gender pay gap as there are fewer women in senior positions than men at PRS for Music. We believe that real progress is achieved through influencing business culture and in 2018 we commenced our programme to recognise drivers of unconscious bias to better support our efforts to promote diversity and act inclusively. We also continued to take positive action with our new ‘Dignity at Work’ policy and by working with industry experts in diversity and inclusion.
“We are making positive steps, but we know there is more we can do. As we look further ahead, we remain committed to engaging all levels of our business to encourage, support and exemplify our core values and celebrate our differences.”
The gender ratio at PRS For Music is 59.8% men and 40.2% women.
The drop in the percentage of employees receiving bonuses was down to the impact of staff leaving the business following the formation of PPL PRS Ltd. The non-eligibility of new starters for bonuses fed through into the results.
PPL - winner of the Company Award For Diversity In The Workplace at the Music Week Women In Music Awards – has yet to issue its 2018 figures. PPL was one of the better industry performers for the gender pay gap in the first year of results.
FOLLOW 
