ZS U.K. Gender Pay Gap Report 2024

Our people are our most valuable asset. It is our responsibility and privilege to invest in their long-term success. We thoughtfully grow our talent pipeline to better reflect the communities and stakeholders we serve and evolve our offerings to support our global team.

Since April 2017, U.K. employers with over 250 employees must disclose their gender pay gaps. In 2022, ZS surpassed this threshold and released its first U.K. Gender Pay Gap Report. The below marks our third submission, utilizing data from the required snapshot date of April 5, 2024, that encompasses a comprehensive analysis of our gender pay gap.

ZS is deeply committed to nurturing a diverse, inclusive, and high-performing culture where every individual can flourish. We uphold our core value of treating people right by advocating for pay parity and use these and other analyses to monitor progress and get it right. With the insights from this report, we will continue to invest in attraction and retention efforts that improve representation of women at ZS, as that is the core driver of our current gap.

Closing the overall gender pay gap is different than ensuring pay equity. While the gender pay gap looks at median or average earnings between men and women and is driven by representation of both genders, pay equity refers to men and women receiving equal pay for equal work across levels—something achieved at ZS.

We work with external partners annually to conduct a pay equity exercise and audit pay practices globally. In our 2024 review, once we accounted for legitimate differences in pay—such as role, job level and prior experience—the audit results showed that there are no statistically significant differences in pay based on gender at ZS in the U.K.

Though we have achieved pay equity, we have an opportunity to close the gender pay gap that exists at ZS and in the professional services industry in the U.K. This can be accomplished by increasing the proportion of women in consulting and leadership roles—especially in leadership roles that carry higher market rates of pay.

Pay parity is engrained in our values, and we are committed to getting it right by addressing our existing representation gap through inclusive recruiting and retention strategies that enhance the employee experience. Our compensation programs and practices are designed to attract ZSers, motivate and reward performance, drive growth and retention and cultivate an inclusive culture. Our philosophy is:

•  Performance-based: We pay for the performance that is expected of ZSers based on their level and job description. We use a competency model as the basis for measuring ZSers’ performance and progression.
• Competitive: We pay above market benchmarks to attract and retain top talent. We survey external benchmarks to ensure our total compensation package is competitive by role, level and location, comparing against a select competitor group relevant for that role. We also evaluate turnover data, exit interview data and internal intelligence from our hiring efforts to keep pace with competitors.
• Fair: We ensure fairness and consistency by regularly auditing our compensation data, so that ZSers receive equal compensation for performing equal work.

Our UK offices (as of April 5, 2024) comprised of 44% women in all roles and levels. Meanwhile, our consulting team skews 62% men, while internal enterprise and support roles skew 70% women. The roles within consulting and internal enterprise apply different salary levels and align to different compensation benchmarks. By increasing the number of women across the organisation in higher leadership and more consulting roles, we can make strides to close the gender pay gap averaged across all roles.

Bonus eligibility across men and women at ZS is equal. The differences (100% vs 98.5%) are predominantly due to transfer practices that resulted in bonuses paid outside of the U.K. and excluded from this analysis. 

Additionally, given that bonus is a greater portion of total compensation at senior levels—and we have a smaller proportion of women in senior roles in the U.K.—this impact is seen in our mean and median bonus gap.

The highest quartiles (e.g., upper quartile) tend to reflect all our U.K. principal level employees, the highest leadership level, who consist primarily of men (77%), in comparison to overall U.K. representation of 55%. Again, as we continue increasing women’s representation across the organization, the gender pay gap reflected in this U.K. analysis will close.

At present, ZS does not have representative gender parity across our various roles and job types. As noted, men have greater representation in roles that pay more within the firm, including principal roles, which reflect the highest level of our organisational hierarchy. However, our historic work and accomplishments regarding pay equity, along with efforts of bias mitigated talent strategies, should continue to improve our U.K. Gender Pay Gap results. While ZS has achieved and maintained gender pay equity across ZS, the U.K. pay gap analysis highlights the opportunity for ZS to work towards representation that reflects U.K. averages.

We have several initiatives underway to attract, motivate and reward performance, drive growth, support retention, and cultivate an inclusive culture with equal employment opportunities for all, including:

• Strategy and action from committed leadership bodies, including our DEI Council, DEI Center of Expertise and Women@ZS Inclusion & Diversity Group. Under the guidance of Shareholders’ Council member and DEI Council Chair Judith Kulich,  our DEI Council set ZS’s DEI strategy and prioritize actions and policies that attract, develop and empower individuals from all backgrounds and experiences. They partner closely with Women@ZS, which is committed to enabling professional growth, launching connections and supporting individual choices of women employees.
• Pay equity assessments. ZS conducts a formal, annual pay equity and compensation review that considers several factors—including roles, locations, levels and more—to determine equal pay for equal work.
• Pipeline development. We focus on inclusive recruiting strategies to attract the best talent and retention strategies to enhance the employee experience.
• Bias mitigation. Annually, we audit our processes to ensure best practices, objectivity, and bias mitigation. We also require all ZSers involved in the hiring process to complete bias mitigation training to further reduce the effects of personal bias when evaluating and rewarding talent.
• Inclusive benefits. We review our benefits offerings regularly and offer flexible work, generous health, family, and vacation leave, wellness coverage, perks and inclusive workplace facilities for all ZSers.

These and many other efforts will help close the representation gap across levels and, with it, the pay gap at ZS.

Declaration

I confirm that the data reported by ZS is accurate.

Signed:

Oriana Vogel

Chief People Officer