UK games industry reportedly had gender pay gap of 17.1% in 2021

With the gender pay gap report deadline arriving this week for many companies in the United Kingdom, there's new data on the disparity in the domestic games industry.

The report: Certain businesses are required to submit data through the official government website.

• Companies that have over 250 employees are legally required to present their data on the wage disparity between the men and women they employ.
• Over 20 games companies have reported their data, including the likes of Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts developer Square Enix, providing an insight into the disparity status as of April 2021.

The findings: GamesIndustry.biz did the hard work of identifying each of the games companies that have filed.

• Of the 23 game firms identified in the report, the median gender wage disparity in the UK games industry was 17.1% in 2021. For context, the gap across all industries with full-time employees totals 7.9%.
• The companies involved in the research include Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe (God of War, Spider-Man), TT Games (LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Batman), Rockstar North (Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption), and Playground Games (Forza, Fable).
• It's reported that game developer Sumo Digital had the largest median wage gap with 36.1%, up drastically from 23.4% in the year prior. 36% of the lowest-paid jobs at the company were held by women.
• Sumo Digital's Managing Director, Gary Dunn, spoke on the disparity in the company's report: "Whilst we acknowledge the increase in our gender pay gap, the cause of this increase is a direct reflection of the efforts that have been made at recruiting
  women into the business at grassroots level."
• Each of the companies that GamesIndustry.biz looked into, of which there were over 20, had a disparity in pay between men and women. Women have been found to be absent from occupying leadership positions at many, if not all of these companies, too.