Gender Pay Report 2022

Sunbelt Rentals Limited

Gender Pay Report 2022

Introduction

Sunbelt Rentals is the leading equipment rental company in the UK with over 4,200 employees at the date of this statement. We offer a broad range of equipment for a wide range of applications to a diverse customer base through our nationwide store network.

Having an engaged and diverse workforce, where our people feel motivated and valued to fulfil their potential and support our customer base is critical to the continued success of our business. To that end, our objective is to be the leading employer in our industry, with Sunbelt Rentals being a Real Living Wage employer. We continue to closely monitor industry pay, and benchmark our salaries, to ensure a competitive package is offered to ensure we attract, retain and appropriately reward our employees.

Our workforce reflects the nature of our business, the industry we operate in, and the markets we serve. As such, a significant proportion of our employees are fitter engineers, HGV drivers and traffic management operatives, and the majority of these roles are held by men. Our sector-leading apprenticeship scheme has seen success in increasing the number of women within both engineering and customer service teams. This will broaden the representation of women within our workforce at all levels as they progress through the company. While this will take several years to make an impact, it is also supported by a broader recruitment approach to encourage a more diverse mix of candidates and which has led to more senior female appointments over the year. As a result of these ongoing initiatives, we are pleased to announce an increase in the proportion of women within our workforce to 17% (2021: 15%).

Our gender pay report for 2022 is set out below. While we continue to make progress on encouraging diversity across our workforce, the shifts in our reported data reflect the fact that relatively small changes in our workforce profile can have a significant impact on our gender pay data given the current proportion of women to men. Our approach is to reward our workforce by reference to individual performance, experience, and skill set, and as such we are confident that any pay or bonus gap reflects the structure of our workforce. Nonetheless, we ensure that we understand the underlying trends in detail so that we can continue to develop and are confident that over time, our initiatives will increase the proportion of women in our workforce at all levels.

We continue to challenge ourselves to seek new ways in which we can encourage and support a more diverse workforce to all levels of our business. In support of that goal, we have transitioned to the industry leading HR platform (Workday) which will support our wider people strategy. At the same time, we run diversity and inclusion forums and focus groups across our business that have contributed significantly to the design and implementation of our strategy. Additionally, the business continues to support mental, physical and financial wellbeing programmes and we provide enhanced maternity and paternity policies. It is our strong belief that we have created an industry leading standard in support of our people.

Andy Wright

Chief Executive, March 2023

Gender Pay reporting

In line with government requirements, we set out below our gender pay statistics as at 5 April 2022. The data required to be reported is:

· the distribution of men and women across four pay quartiles, based on their hourly rate of pay;

· the difference in the mean and median hourly rate of pay between men and women;

· the proportion of men and women who receive a bonus; and

· the difference in the mean and median bonus pay between men and women.

The government has set out the basis upon which these statistics should be calculated.

Pay Quartiles

The table above illustrates the gender distribution at Sunbelt Rentals across each of the four pay quartiles and shows an increase in women in each pay quartile broadly consistent with the proportion of women joining our business. However, we do have proportionately fewer women in the bottom quartile reflecting the fact that the nature of roles in the lower quartile, which includes roles such as traffic management operatives, have attracted fewer women historically.

Gender Pay Gap

The gender pay gap is the difference between the mean and median hourly rate of pay for men and women.

For the current reporting period, the median pay for women is 0.3% lower than that for men whilst their mean pay is 0.9% lower than that for men. These figures demonstrate that Sunbelt Rentals does not have a significant gender pay gap and any movement in our mean or median figures reflects relatively small shifts in the make-up of our workforce. The gender pay gap should not be confused with Equal Pay, which is a legal requirement and ensures that individuals carrying our similar duties are paid fairly compared to one another. We are committed to ensuring equal pay and our reward policies are designed to ensure this.

Bonus Pay

In the year under review, all employees were eligible to participate in some form of incentive arrangement linked to either company or individual performance.  

Proportion receiving a bonus

The proportion of all employees receiving a bonus remains high, reflecting strong company-wide performance. The percentage of men and women receiving bonus payments was similar

Bonus gender pay gap

For the current period, the median bonus payment was equal between women and men. During the year, we paid out bonus payments across the whole eligible business population.

The mean bonus payment remains significantly lower for women. At a senior level, employees benefit from both annual bonus arrangements and longer-term share plan incentives linked to Ashtead Group plc’s (Sunbelt Rentals Limited parent company) performance. The lower level of women in senior positions means the long term incentives are skewed towards men and result in a lower mean bonus paid to women. The mean bonus gender pay gap widened in 2022 as the share incentive arrangements vested at a higher value than in 2021 due to share price appreciation during the vesting period. The three-year vesting period of share incentive arrangements will naturally create a lag between recent increases in the proportion of women in senior roles and their receiving a share incentive arrangement payment.