Championing equality, equity, diversity and inclusion lies at the heart of everything we do at London Metropolitan University. In addition to the information on these pages, you can find out more about our values and the action we're taking by visiting our Centre for Equity and Inclusion pages.
Public Sector Equality Duty
As a public authority we have general and specific public sector equality duties (PSED) under the Equality Act 2010 and associated legislation.
We commit to taking action to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment, and victimisation; advance equality of opportunity; and foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not.
We have approved overarching equality objectives on a four-yearly basis (from 30 March 2018) and publish these. The last review was due in March 2022, the next is March 2026.
These equality objectives are:
1. To consolidate and further our Charter Mark work as outlined in our strategic plan and within actions plans associated with our Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter, Stonewall and Disability Confident action plans.
2. To make progress against 13 objectives identified within our Access and Participation Plan (note a refreshed plan containing the 13 objectives will replace this version once OfS approval is confirmed) which aim to tackle identified key risks and improve student outcomes for target groups.
3. To make year on year progress in reducing our gender and ethnicity pay gaps as outlined within our People Strategy.
To help us meet our public sector equality duties we will use our Equality Impact Assessment process to consider how policies and procedures that we develop and review and decisions that we make affect people with protected characteristics, such as age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation.
To help us review and assess the impact of what we do, we will gather and publish information on staff, students and services on an annual basis.
Find out more
We have signed up to the Charter for Employers Positive About Mental Health for employers who are positive about mental health. We have links to a range of staff support materials on our Mental Health Support web page.
Athena SWAN is an initiative which champions the advancement of gender equality.
Our Bronze Level Award Application was submitted to Advance HE at the end of May 2021 and in September 2021 we were successfully accredited.
We are a member of Stonewall’s Diversity Champions programme and have taken part in the Workplace Equality Index, to help us improve and implement LGBT+ inclusive policies and practices across the University. This has given us an action plan to work through.
Following our most recent submission, we climbed 53 places on the Stonewall Index in 2023 relative to our 2022 position, and we are 162nd in the national list. We have been awarded a bronze award.
Further information on our pledge to support LGBT rights is also set out on our news page.
London Met stands opposed to antisemitism. In June 2020, the University adopted the working definition of antisemitism as developed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). The definition states:
- Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.
Eliminating racial and religious bias is central to the University's commitment to being an inclusive and welcoming space for all. London Met was the first UK university to adopt the working definition of Islamophobia as developed by the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims. The APPG recommended the adoption of the following definition:
- Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.
We have a proud tradition of embracing and valuing diversity and this is reflected in our student body and staff, which we monitor and report on annually at the end of each academic year.
We welcome students from all over the world and currently have more than 120 nationalities on campus.
The data below provides ethnicity, gender, age and disability representation across our staff.
2022/23 staff by ethnicity
| Ethnicity | 2022/23 | 2021/22 | 2020/21 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Asian | 11.6% | 10.4% | 10.2% | 1.4% |
| Black | 14.2% | 13.3% | 13.7% | 0.5% |
| Mixed | 5.5% | 5.7% | 2.1% | 3.4% |
| Not known/information refused | 13.5% | 11.9% | 14.1% | 0.6% |
| Other | 5.8% | 5.6% | 5.4% | 0.4% |
| White | 49.5% | 52.4% | 56.1% | -6.6% |
2022/23 staff by gender
Women make up 57% of our workforce.
| Gender | 2022/23 | 2021/22 | 2020/21 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Female | 57.3% | 56% | 55.9% | 1.4% |
| Male | 42.7% | 44% | 44.1% | -1.4% |
2022/23 staff with declared disabilities
Numbers of staff with declared disabilities remain low and with little change year on year.
| Disability | 2022/23 | 2021/22 | 2020/21 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No | 99.6% | 99.5% | 99.4% | 0.2% |
| Yes | 0.4% | 0.5% | 0.6% | -0.2% |
2022/23 age profile
There has been little change in employee age profile from last year.
| Age group | 2022/23 | 2021/22 | 2020/21 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 26 | 14% | 14% | 12% | 2% |
| 26-50 | 56% | 54% | 47% | 9% |
| 51-65 | 25% | 26% | 35% | -10% |
| Over 65 | 5% | 6% | 6% | -1% |
We value and promote diversity and dignity at work through our staff development programmes, policies and practices, as well as new staff induction.
We also value the contribution of our staff and seek to ensure that they are supported and do not face unnecessary barriers to their employment. We have set out our commitments in our Strategic Plan and in our Equality and Diversity Policy .
All job applicants are asked to submit an equality and diversity statement of no more than one page, articulating how they will contribute to making our University more inclusive and what they have previously done to advance equality.
We are proud to take part in the government's Disability Confident scheme as a Disability Confident Employer and have published information to help and support our staff and our managers.
2022/23 pay gap figures
Our mean gender pay gap for 2022/23 is 5.99%, which is 1.66% lower than it was in 2021/22 (7.65%).
Our median gender pay gap for 2022/23 is 4.04%, which is 4.8% lower than it was in 2021/22 (8.83%).
UCEA benchmarking indicates that the 2022/23 median gender pay gap at the median HEI is 12%, meaning that our median gender pay gap is approximately 8% better than our comparators. Our median gender pay gap is also 4.8% lower than it was in 2021/22.
2021/22 figures are shown in brackets.
| Gender pay gap | Median | Mean |
|---|---|---|
| Gender pay gap | 4.04% (8.83%) | 5.99% (7.65%) |
| Proportion of women and men in each pay quartile | Women | Men |
|---|---|---|
| Upper quartile | 47.0% (46.47%) | 53.53% (53.53%) |
| Upper middle | 55.8% (54.22%) | 44.2% (45.78%) |
| Lower middle | 55.8% (55.31%) | 44.2% (44.69%) |
| Lower | 61.7% (61.58%) | 38.3% (38.42%) |
The main reason for our pay gap is because we have more women than men in our lower pay quartile, which is almost entirely due to the composition of our employed students.
We have a strong commitment to providing our students with the best support and this includes giving them paid work to help them financially during their studies and to equip them with workplace skills that help them with their careers after they graduate and proudly employ our students via MetTemps, our own employment agency.
Estimates are that our MetTemps programme accounts for between 2% and 3% of our Gender Pay Gap. MetTemp appointments are normally paid the London Living Wage (£11:05 p/hour in 2021/22) and make up between 9.18% (2016/17) and 18.12% (2019/20) of our overall workforce headcount. Our MetTemp population generally represents our student population, so for 2021/22 women make up 63.39% of MetTemps with men making up 36.61%. Our MetTemp workforce directly affects our Gender Pay Gap. Since 2018/19, our data shows that the proportion of our workforce who are not MetTemps directly correlates with our Gender Pay Gap.
We maintain equal pay through a range of measures:
- Embracing inclusivity as a core value. Our Strategy 2019/20 – 2024/25 sets out that we celebrate our diverse community, we see difference as a source of strength and we challenge exclusionary and discriminatory practice.
- Promoting inclusion as one of our strategic goals including by working towards achievement of the Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter, Stonewall and Disability Confident standards to facilitate diversity in our staff community and ensure that everyone at London Met is valued and included.
- Recruiting staff who share our values and commitments. Our current recruitment and selection practice has been updated following the recommendations of the McGregor Smith review to include provisions for representative panels and a requirement that all applicants submit a statement showing how they will contribute to inclusion, equality and diversity.
- Raising awareness amongst our staff. Our senior leaders took part in inclusivity workshops and all new staff have equality and diversity training.
- We set out clear expectations and responsibilities in our Equality and Diversity policy which sets out our equality commitments in respect of all staff.
- We ensure equal pay by evaluating roles and responsibilities, not people, to determine pay grade.
- We have clear published salary scales for all staff grades.
- We have a published fair recruitment and selection policy, supported by training incorporating unconscious bias training.
- We are an accredited London Living Wage employer and ensure all our staff, and in particular our lower-paid staff, earn at least the London Living Wage.
- We enable and promote better use of flexible working policy to support employees with caring responsibilities and have increased our paid maternity provisions to be sector leading.
- Our career development initiatives encourage and support academic women through the promotions process, including better access to mentoring opportunities, more secondment opportunities and coaching sessions.
- We offer all staff access to staff development and an Employee Assistance Programme.
- We have three active trade unions and active staff networks including our Women’s Network, Staff DisAbility Network, LGBTQ+ Network, and BAME Network.
Our gender pay action plan aims to further reduce or eliminate our gender pay gap by:
- Continuing to closely monitor, analyse and report our pay gaps to raise awareness and better inform decision making.
- Keeping our pay and remuneration policies and practices under review to ensure they are fair and to eliminate any unintentional bias.
- Providing training, guidance and support to managers to underpin our policy and practices.
- Supporting our staff to enable them to work flexibly.
- Investing in the development of our staff.
Any feedback or comments are welcome via email to hr@londonmet.ac.uk.
Our duties and commitments are set out in our published Equality and Diversity Policy and are covered in our online Diversity Essentials course, which all staff are asked to complete. We are in the process of moving this and other essential training to our newly developed online portal, MyDevelopment, to enable us to better track participation and completion rates.
Our equality and diversity targets and progress are set out in our work plan and the KPIs in our University Strategic Plan. Our Bronze Level Athena Swan Award Application was submitted to Advance HE at the end of May 2021 and in September 2021 we were successfully accredited.
We are a member of Stonewall’s Diversity Champions programme and have taken part in the Workplace Equality Index, to help us improve and implement LGBT+ inclusive policies and practices across the University. This has given us an action plan to work through.
We have active staff networks for LGBTQ+, women, staff with disabilities and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) staff.
Our Harassment Policy sets out our commitment to dealing with complaints of bullying and harassment.
All our employment policies and procedures are reviewed every two years and we are working with Stonewall and our Athena Swan and Race Equality Charter (REC) teams and with our staff networks, to review our policies to ensure they are inclusive.
We have a proud tradition of embracing and valuing diversity and this is reflected in our student body and staff, which we monitor and report on annually at the end of each academic year.
We welcome students from all over the world and currently have more than 120 nationalities on campus.
We value and promote diversity and dignity at work through our staff development programmes, policies and practices, as well as new staff induction.
We also value the contribution of our staff and seek to ensure that they are supported and do not face unnecessary barriers to their employment. We have set out our commitments in our Strategic Plan and in our Equality and Diversity Policy .
All job applicants are asked to submit an equality and diversity statement of no more than one page, articulating how they will contribute to making our University more inclusive and what they have previously done to advance equality.
Data reporting
Our 2025 Annual HR report provides profile data with key successes and challenges.
Data Insights
Age
73% of our staff fall within the 31-60 age range. Recent years have seen a slight increase in the proportion of younger staff (aged < 30).
Our Professional Services staff tend to be younger than our Academic group. Academic staff have more than twice the proportion of 60+ staff and a reducing proportion in the 51-60 age group (reducing from 27% to 24% between 2020-24)
Men are better represented in the older age groups (51 to 60 and Over 60). Women are better represented in the younger age groups (21 to 30 and 31 to 40).
Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
The data demonstrates increasing confidence in declaring, with 74% of staff disclosing their sexual orientation, up from 66% in 2020. In 2023/24, 7% of staff who have declared sexual orientation identify as LGBTQ+, up from 5% in 2020/21.
Increasing numbers of staff are disclosing their gender identity status (79% in 2023/24)
Successes
Our Gender Pay Gap (GPG) - Our Mean GPG is 4.39% (our lowest reported value ever). Our Median GPG is 5.82% which is significantly lower than the UK median GPG of 13.1% (ONS, 2024) and the HE sector median of 9.0% (Advance HE, 2024).
Staff Declarations - Staff declarations are increasing across all categories with the exception of disability. However, disability declaration at 92% is notably high overall and the disability staff disclosure at 8%, is now above the average for the sector.
Senior representation – Increased female and BAME representation at senior levels and within our academic staff group.
BAME representation within our low - middle grades is now proportionate to overall workforce representation.
BAME representation is increasing most in our upper middle and above academic grades (Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Reader) creating a talent pipeline but is still below the overall workforce representation.
The proportion of staff who declared a disability rose from 6% in 2020/21 to 8% in 2023/24 which is above the UK Higher Education disability disclosure rate of 7.2% (Advance HE reported in 2024).
Challenges
Gender balance at Professorial level - Professor and Senior Professors roles have the lowest representation of women at 15 out of a total of 45 roles in 2023/24.
Gender Pay Gap - Women are less well represented in the upper pay quartile and over-represented in the lower pay quartile, which contributes to our remaining Gender Pay Gap.
Ethnicity Pay Gap - Our Ethnicity pay gap is significantly above the sector average and is explained by the over-representation of BAME staff, at lower - mid grades within our structure. A positive link to this is an increase in BAME representation overall and a growing pipeline which points to the importance of targeted positive action to support BAME staff to develop, secure promotions and help the institution close the gap.
Seniority - Minoritised staff (particularly BAME and LGBTQ+ Professional Service) are less likely to be represented in senior grades. For LGBTQ+ Professional Staff, out of a population of 45, there are no reportable senior staff.
Other insights
Learning difference such as dyslexia, dyspraxia or ADHD is most commonly cited (43%), followed by long term illness or health condition (21%) and an impairment, health condition or learning difference not listed (18%).
What’s next?
1. Strategy and action planning - Data will inform a review of priorities within our Charter Mark work (Athena SWAN, Stonewall and Disability Confident renewal, Race Equality Charter application and the Inclusive Culture strand of our People Strategy.
2. Staff declarations - We will periodically encourage our staff to declare using Oracle self-service to reduce unknown data.
3. People data dashboard - We are developing a People Dashboard as part of the Digital First Strategy which will focus on enhancing the quality and availability of demographic and intersectional data to our organisation and to leaders and managers, to enable the examination of trends by area.
4. Provision of applicant and appointee data - Following the implementation of the Oracle People and Finance system, we are focusing on being able to provide applicant and appointee data to support our Charter Mark work and equality plans.
5. Pay gap analysis - We will continue with our gender pay gap action plan with the aim of making more progress in closing our gap. We will focus on gaining a better understanding of our ethnicity pay gap, through an ethnicity equal pay audit and intersectional equal pay audit and develop an action plan to address it in a swift, impactful way.
6. Talent management and pipeline support - We will design professional development interventions with our pipeline in mind, paying particular attention to where there are representational disparities in staff profile.
7. Impact of age-related policies - We will consider the impact of age-related policies as part of our staff engagement work, including understanding why there are differences between the Academic and Professional Staff profiles in the 60+ age group.
Our equality and diversity policies, guidance and information
Our duties and commitments are set out in our published Equality and Diversity Policy and are covered in our online Diversity Essentials course, which all staff are asked to complete. Our new HR system facilitates tracking participation and completion rates.
Our equality and diversity targets and progress are set out in our work plan and the KPIs in our University Strategic Plan. Our Bronze Level Athena Swan Award Application was submitted to Advance HE at the end of May 2021 and in September 2021 we were successfully accredited.
We are a member of Stonewall’s Diversity Champions programme and have taken part in the Workplace Equality Index, to help us improve and implement LGBT+ inclusive policies and practices across the University. We were awarded Silver following our most recent submission.
We have active staff networks for LGBTQ+, women, staff with disabilities and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) staff.
Our Harassment Policy sets out our commitment to dealing with staff complaints of bullying and harassment.
Disability information
We are reconised as a Disability Confident Leader - Disability Confident Leader .
Out commitments under Disability Confident include our commitment to offering an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential (minimum) person specification criteria that are unaffected by their disability and can be assessed from the application form.
Our Disability Information and Support page includes our
Our employment policies and procedures
All our employment policies and procedures are reviewed every two years and we work with Stonewall and our Athena Swan and Race Equality Charter (REC) teams and with our staff networks, to review our policies to ensure they are inclusive.
Our paid maternity, paternity, adoption and shared parental leave provisions for staff include paid Carer’s leave and a Carer's Passport; up to 52 weeks paid maternity and adoption leave; 8 weeks paid paternity leave to 8 weeks; paid neonatal leave; and paid leave for fertility treatment.