Gender Pay Gap Report 2025
At L&C, we're fully committed to building a more diverse and inclusive culture.
By developing our policies across recruitment, retention, promotion and training, we're actively working towards reducing our gender pay gap in the coming years.
Background
As of April 2025, London & Country Mortgages Ltd (L&C) employed 856 at its offices in Bath, Newcastle and its virtual office. We’re publishing our gender pay gapreport in accordance with the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations. It’s important to note that the gender pay gap is not the same asequal pay. Equal pay is the requirement that all men and women who carry out the same or similar jobs are paid the same. We are confident that men and women are paid equally for doing equal jobs across the organisation.
Our gender pay gap
The table belowshows our mean and median pay and bonus gap on 5th April 2025 as well as comparisons to our 2024 data.
| 2023/24 | 2024/25 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean | Median | Mean | Median | |
| Pay gap | 21.1% | 13.7% | 21.9% | 20.2% |
| Bonus gap | 64.3% | 75.9% | 62.8% | 79.2% |
In line with ONS data analysis, we measure our gender pay gap using the difference between the median hourly earnings (excluding overtime) of men and women, expressed as a proportion of men's median hourly earnings (excluding overtime).
L&C’s median pay gap in 2024/2025 is 20.2%, higher than the national average of 6.9%(1). This is an increase from our 2023/2024 median of 13.7%. While this is higher than the financial services industry average of 9% for 2025, we are committed to closing the gap and fostering gender pay equity within the organisation(2).
Our median bonus gap increased from 75.9% in 2023/2024 to 79.2% in 2024/2025. However, bonus participation increased for both genders in 2025. 3.07% more males received a bonus in 2024/2025 compared to 2023/2024, while 6.56% more females received a bonus. This demonstrates positive steps forward in closing the gap between males and females who receive a bonus, and those who do not.
The underlying reason for the pay gap is that, like most of the financial services industry, we have a higher proportion of men within our business working in higher paid senior, technical and sales roles. In the lower quartile of the business, however, there are more females; specifically in this lower quartile there are 113 females to 89 men. The majority of part-time colleagues are female and work in lower paid roles, with a smaller, or no, bonus.
- Source: Gender pay gap in the UK: 2025, Office for National Statistics, 23 October 2025
- Source: FCA pay and bonus gap data 2025, Financial Conduct Authority, 10 July 2025
This trend is highlighted in the following charts, which show that the proportion of men continues to be higher in three out of the four pay quartiles. In 2025, female representation has reduced slightly in the upper and upper-middle quartile, while women make up a larger proportion in the lower quartile. This continues to be the primary driver of L&Cs gender pay gap.
Action to close the gap
We remaincommitted to ensuring that everyone has an equal chance to fulfil their careeraspirations and potential at L&C – whatever their gender.
What we’ve already done:
- Enhanced Maternity & Adoption Policy to attract and retain more women, particularly in sales and senior management roles. In the advice section, for example, 75-80% of colleagues are male. This policy helps women to feel more financially stable and gives them more choice, in the hope that it encourages them to return to their position after maternity or adoption leave.
- Menopause Policy We continue to review and support colleagues in their roles if required, to ensure that menopause does not negatively affect their working life. We believe this support will help to avoid colleagues feeling that they need to step down from senior roles, or that they should not apply for promotion.
- Introduced funded HRT - At L&C, we’re committed to supporting our people through every stage of life and that includes the menopause journey. Therefore L&C now cover the cost of prescribed HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) treatment for any of our colleagues going through menopause.
- Flexible Working Policy updated to promote a better work/life balance for all colleagues. We have also moved to a hybrid business model which provides more flexibility. This is to help our colleagues manage their work/life balance and feel better able to meet their family commitments, while continuing to meet the needs of our customers. We also operate a more flexible approach to working times and patterns than we have in the past.
- Encourage Upskilling and Career Progression – L&C is always looking to upskill its colleagues and support them in their career journey. We have budgets to support our colleagues with learning new skills or assisting them with gaining new qualifications. We have also launched the Apprenticeship Levy scheme for current colleagues to gain new skills within the workplace.
- D,E&I Survey
Our future commitments to closing the gap:
- Investors in People – As a part of our ongoing commitment to fairness, inclusion, and equity, we have started the process of joining the Investors in People initiative. This framework supports us in strengthening our people practices, promoting transparent career progression, and ensuring consistent development opportunities for all colleague
- Focused Recruitment - We are strengthening our approach to recruitment, including reviewing job descriptions to ensure inclusive language, widening advertising channels to reach more diverse talent pools, and ensuring balanced shortlists wherever possible. By taking a more targeted and data-led approach to hiring, we aim to improve representation in underrepresented roles and, over time, reduce the structural drivers of our gender pay gap.
- Flexible Working - We will continue to promote flexible and hybrid working options at all levels to support retention and progression, particularly in roles where this has previously been limited.
- Accountability through leadership: Set clear diversity and inclusion objectives for senior leaders and monitor progress against measurable targets
- D,E&I survey - We continue to use feedback from our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion survey to better understand colleagues’ lived experiences across the organisation. The findings help us identify potential barriers to progression, perceptions of fairness, and areas where additional support may be needed. By reviewing this data alongside our pay gap analysis, we can take targeted, evidence-based action to support greater equity and inclusion across all levels of the business.
As in previous years, our pay and bonus gaps are primarily influenced by the uneven distribution of colleagues across roles and levels of responsibility within L&C. We recognise that there is still more to do to achieve meaningful and lasting progress, and L&C remains committed to this long-term journey and understands that reducing our gender pay gap will take sustained effort over time. We are dedicated to making this progress in order to foster a rewarding and inclusive workplace for both our current and future colleagues
David Gray, Chief People Officer
Note: We confirm that our data is accurate and has been calculated according to the requirements of The Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017.