Games Industry Guide To: Gender Pay Gap 2024

As much as we wish we didn't still have to have this conversation in 2024, unfortunately, the gender pay gap is still present in the Games and Interactive industries, and as such the best thing we can do with the data we collect is shed light on the issue.

 

Our 2024 Games & Interactive Salary and Satisfaction Survey offers a depiction of the current gender pay gap landscape in the industry. The data reveals a gender pay gap of 22%*.

This means that on average, men in the industry are earning just over £11k** more each year than women. In other words, women in games and interactive will stop getting paid on 12^th October this year!

We have ensured that non-binary respondents are included in this year's Gender Pay Gap report to see the effects outside of the gender binary.

 

Unfortunately, the percentage gap is an entire 9% larger than we found last year, this could be due to receiving a higher number of female respondents than in 2023, giving us more data to work with, and highlighting the size of the gap.

To put a positive spin on this figure, compared to the last time we conducted this analysis and provided a gender pay gap report, the gap is 6% smaller. Additionally, when comparing our data to GamesIndustry.biz’s analysis in 2022, the pay gap is now 4% smaller.

Let’s take a deeper dive into this issue…

 

👉 Click here to download the full report 👈

 

 

How Does The Pay Gap Look Across Regions?

This year’s data depicts that Western Europe has the smallest gender pay gaps in Europe at 11.55%. At the other end of the spectrum, we have Eastern Europe with a shocking 30% gender pay gap.

Across the pond, the US and Canada stand at 25% and 22.5% gaps respectively, whilst the smallest gap is seen in Asia, where the overall lower salaries show only a 1% pay gap.

 

It is important to note how this data is impacted by the seniority of the roles, with more female respondents in Mid-Level to Senior roles and more males in Senior to Lead roles. 

With more high-level roles presented in male respondents, it is only to be expected that the data would illustrate a higher average salary for men than women, which could go some way to explaining the extortionate gender pay gap we’re seeing in countries like the US and Eastern Europe.

Although there might be a plausible reason for this disparity, does it point to a wider issue? Are women in these regions unable to progress to senior-level positions?

In order to provide a more accurate view of the gender pay gap across regions a breakdown into senior positions was conducted, which provides a far more positive picture, but still a noticeable gap.

 

 

Interestingly, in this analysis, we see a much smaller gender pay gap in most regions. In fact, for Western Europe, our data shows that women are actually earning slightly more than their male counterparts in senior positions on average, by 2.3%. Compared to our previous gender pay gap report from 2023, we are sadly not seeing a more positive landscape – with the UK rising to an 8% gap, then a 12% gap and an 18% gap in the US and Canada respectively.

Now is a good time to note that in areas across South America, Asia, Africa and Australia, unfortunately, we didn’t gain enough responses from these regions to include in our more broken down analyses.

 

 

The Glass Ceiling

As alluded to earlier, it’s interesting to consider the possibility that, especially in countries with the largest gender pay gap, there may be a problem with women climbing the ladder.

The graphs below show the split of respondents who are Graduates/Juniors on the left and Mid-Level or Seniors on the right.

Then, the Lead/Manager and Principal are on the bottom left and the Directors and CEO's on the bottom right.

 

 

Although the data portrays fewer women overall as you progress up the ranks, in comparison to three years ago we do see some movement in the right direction. Our 2019/2020 report showed that the vast majority of female respondents were working in Graduate roles, with almost none reaching Director level, whereas the latest data sees a shift towards Mid-level, Lead/Manager roles and certainly an increase in the number of female Directors and CEOs.

 

 

Does The Gender Pay Gap Close with Seniority?

The table below breaks down the average increase in salary as men and women climb the career ladder. Interestingly, the gender pay gap observed in our dataset seems to have increased from the last time we conducted this analysis in 2023. For Junior, Lead and Principal roles there is a larger difference than in last year's survey. With the smallest gap being at a Mid-Level earning only 2% less. And female CEOs earn marginally more than their male counterparts at a 3.5% difference. When it comes to the Director level, however, women are only earning 63% of the money that men are earning, indicating that women at the top are not being fairly compensated.

 

 

This data represents a pivotal step forward for the industry which is essential to recognise, however with the distribution of women in top level jobs lacking, there is still work to be done to ensure women have equal opportunities to both progress to top roles and also earn a fair wage once they get there.

 

👉 Click here to download the full report 👈

 

 

A Note on The Stats

Our report this year depicted a similar gender breakdown as Ukie’s 2022 Games Industry Census with our report observing 71% male, 26% female and 3% other respondents, and Ukie finding 67% male, 30% female and 3% other, which indicates that our respondent pool is a fair representation of the overall population of those working in Games & Interactive.

 

 

Although it seems the gender pay gap in the industry is moving in the right direction in the long term, there’s evidently still an issue as lots of the data this year shows no improvement from last year. We still need to see improvements in the proportion of women who make it into the industry, and the proportion of women who succeed in reaching top-level roles.

We look forward to seeing positive trends in gender pay gap statistics for our industry in the coming years, and many more women joining our industry!

 

 

Hopefully, the above information offers some valuable food for thought. If you have any questions relating to our gender pay gap report or our 2024 survey, we’re on hand to help!

Fill out our survey feedback form here and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Looking for your next career move? Check out our latest roles in the games and interactive industry!

*Data collected from November 2023-January 2024

**All currencies converted to GBP via HMRC rate in February 2024