Equality duties: pay gap report 2025

Vertical and horizontal occupational segregation statement 2025

Occupational segregation refers to the clustering of groups of staff at certain levels and in certain professions in the organisation. Ordinarily measured as men and women, but also disabled and non-disabled staff, and staff who fall into a racial minority and those who do not.

The evidence indicates that while the overall workforce continues to become more diverse, further work is required to accelerate this process, particularly in relation to disability and ethnicity. In terms of grades and pay bands (vertical occupational segregation), disabled staff continue to be concentrated at junior levels. Ethnic minority staff are under-represented at every level compared to Scotland's population and, comparing A-C bands, are more likely to be at junior levels.

Vertical

Vertical segregation refers to the clustering of groups of staff at certain levels, or ‘grades’ in the organisation.

Horizontal

Horizontal segregation is the clustering of groups of staff (at all levels or ‘grades’) at certain professions within the organisation.

As was reported in the 2021 report, the impact of Covid and system limitations has hampered the ability to collect and analyse meaningful management data on job families and professions in order to analyse and understand the nature and distribution of jobs across the organisation. However, the implementation of a new HR system in October 2024 has provided an opportunity to improve how data is collected and recorded about job families allowing the detailed analysis that was not previously possible.

Tables

The tables in the section: Occupational segregation summarise workforce composition and both vertical and horizontal occupational segregation.

The data comes from our HR system records. As an organisation, we are new to using professions data and our approach continues to evolve. As such, the data may not be a complete reflection of the segregation of our organisation across professions, but it represents our best understanding of that landscape as it stands.