Equality duties: pay gap report 2025

Scottish Government pay systems

Scottish Government pay systems are underpinned by analytical job evaluation, which is recognised as a sound basis on which to determine work of equal value. The Job Evaluation and Grading Support (JEGS) system is the basis for evaluating posts below Senior Civil Service (SCS), with SCS grades following Job Evaluation for Senior Posts (JESP). To avoid bias, evaluation focuses on the role rather than the individual, using established descriptions for each grade, and trained evaluators review cases.

Each of the Scottish Government staff groups has a defined pay system which groups jobs assessed as having the same ‘job weight’ into grades. Each grade has a minimum rate of pay, a maximum rate of pay, and a number of defined pay steps in between. Scottish Government pay policies will see individual staff start at the minimum pay step for their grade. Staff will move up one pay step each year based on their performance and the pay review process. This continues until they reach the maximum for their grade. Current progression journeys range from a minimum of two years to a maximum of four years depending on pay range.

Pay reviews are undertaken on a collective bargaining basis between the Scottish Government and the recognised trade unions. The trade unions are also involved in every part of reward policy within the Scottish Government. Pay reviews cover all aspects of remuneration and terms and conditions.

The following table provides a breakdown of pay gaps calculated on a mean average basis within each grade for the Scottish Government Main (SGM) bargaining unit. This is our largest staff group and covers 15,890 staff and is 97% of all staff (including SGM, Scottish Government Marine, and SCS). This is the level at which equal pay for work of equal value is determined. This provides an illustration that our pay and grading systems are delivering equal pay on a grade by grade basis in respect of gender, disability, and ethnicity. There will always be some level of gap which reflects turnover (e.g. leavers, joiners, promotions) in each grade and the proper operation of the pay system where new staff to the grade start at the minimum of the pay range.

A positive pay gap indicates where male, non-disabled or white staff have a pay lead and a negative pay gap indicates where female, disabled staff or staff self-declared as an ethnic minority have a pay lead.

Table 1: SGM grade by grade pay gap analysis

Figures within the C3 row for Ethnic Minority/White Pay Gap have been suppressed for disclosure control purposes. For more details, please see the notes in the accompanying publication.