nDreams Gender Pay Gap Report 2022

The games industry has a gender pay gap problem.

Since 2017, UK companies of more than 250 employees have been legally required to publicly report on various aspects of gender pay data. In 2022, GamesIndustry.biz used this public data to reveal that the games industry had a 17.1% median pay disparity in favour of men. This compares to a pay gap, again favouring men, of 7.9% across all industries in the UK.

The obvious conclusion is that the games industry is falling behind other industries in this department, which is difficult for us to accept as both a proud member of this incredible industry and a committed advocate for fair and equitable pay for all.

This is why we have decided to share our Gender Pay Gap Report for 2022, despite not yet being legally obliged to do so, in the interests of transparency and contributing our insight to causes we feel passionately about.

The first thing to acknowledge here is that unfortunately, the report is not fully all-encompassing. We adopted the UK government’s gender pay gap reporting guidelines, which require binary data, and therefore roughly 2% of nDreams team members who identified as non-binary are not included in our report.

Taking into account 121 nDreams employees – we are much larger now after a period of sustained growth, at around 200 –  our reporting showed an overall staff split of 81% men and 19% women. This marks a slight year-on-year reduction in women’s representation in the team, from 22% women in 2021.

While this is disappointing, it is heartening to see that nearly 23% of women were in the top quartile of pay (compared to only 13% in 2021). This is showing the impact of internal promotions and active hiring practices at nDreams to address the lack of women leadership, which is an industry-wide issue.

By far the biggest indicator of change, however, is the fact that nDreams is bucking the industry and national trends by reporting a NEGATIVE gender median pay gap – meaning simply than in median hourly pay, women earned 7% more than men in the measured period. This is a notable swing, with women having earned 21% less in median pay than men in 2021.

A multitude of factors can impact these statistics and account for this variance, not least the seniority of new hires, but we’re positive that all team members are well compensated based on their specialisms and experience, and never based on their gender. We are proud of the progress this signals in our ongoing mission to ensure fair and equitable pay for all staff, although there remains much work to be done.

The full Gender Pay Gap Report for 2022 can be checked out here.