Accenture Ireland’s 2023 gender pay gap

This is the second year of new legislation that measures the gender pay gap in Ireland. We welcome the legislation as a positive step for Ireland towards gender equality and greater transparency.

The gender pay gap reporting approach is designed to calculate the actual average earning differences between males and females (for those whose gender is binary), irrespective of level and job responsibility. Using this methodology, Accenture’s mean (average) gender pay gap stands at 9.14% and our median (midpoint) gender pay gap is 2.03%. In both measures, the gap is marginally wider than last year. Several factors have contributed to this outcome, including changes to our workforce due to attrition. At an overall level, we have seen some positive trends, such as overall female representation increasing slightly from 49.3% to 49.6%, and an increase in female representation at leadership level from 39% to 41%.

The gender pay gap is different than equal pay, which means paying the same amount to men and women doing comparable work, which has been a legal requirement since the Anti-Discrimination (Pay) Act of 1974. We have a fundamental commitment to pay equity.

We have learnt from experience that a continued focus on getting the fundamentals right is core to reducing the gender pay gap. This means retaining our focus on a 50/50 balance in recruitment, promotion, and reward investment, for those whose gender is binary, while striving for equal gender balance at all career levels.

At Accenture we know that diversity drives innovation, and it is a top priority. We also believe that transparency builds trust and holds us to account on our commitments. Below is our gender pay gap data. It shows where we are today as well as the actions that we have identified to help reduce the gap.

What is our gender pay gap?

The full details of Accenture’s gender pay gap in Ireland are published in the table below and are calculated on our salary data in Ireland as of 30 June 2023.

What is Accenture doing about its gender pay gap?

We are committed to driving societal change, both in and beyond Accenture, helping to address systemic issues that impact gender equality, such as a lack of deep technology skills and training, childcare, and menopause health provision. Making our organisation and our society better places for everyone is what drives us to support our women across all levels every day.

We are proud to offer targeted training and development opportunities for our women to help position them for success. We’re also proud to have inclusive flexible working policies and healthcare provisions that allow our people to succeed, no matter their personal circumstances and to continue to promote gender equality within and outside of our organisation.

In addition, we host numerous events and opportunities to have open and honest conversations about gender equality for women annually, including our flagship International Women’s Day event. In 2023, we invited our clients, people and community partners to the Convention Centre in Dublin to hear from a diverse range of perspectives on what’s next for the progress of women post-COVID-19.

Action

1. Shift towards a 50/50 gender-balanced workforce at all career levels in Ireland

To help achieve diversity, we set goals, share them publicly, and collect data to measure our progress, continuously improve, and hold our leaders accountable for ensuring we have the most innovative and talented people in our industry. This approach is a key driver of our progress and is evident in processes such as recruitment, development, and promotion. A data-driven approach to internal gender reporting and gender mix goals by career level and business area reinforce our global commitment to 50% female representation by 2025.

2. Support the development of our pipeline of female leadership talent

We have established a women-in-leadership network which encourages informal networking and mentorship through dedicated gatherings and events. We encourage and facilitate membership in women in leadership programmes to accelerate advancement to leadership roles.

3. Support our people and address inequalities in care

Through a series of actions and initiatives, we continue to address inequalities in care responsibilities related to gender. We offer care support through our Bright Horizons partnership, available to all parents regardless of gender. We now offer paid fertility and pregnancy loss leave, regardless of gender, and have introduced paid surrogacy leave. Through our partnership with Menopause Hub Ireland, we provide all employees and their partners with free specialised menopause support. We continue to offer a flexible working policy to support all carers in managing their responsibilities.

4. Maintain our strong inclusion & diversity and STEM presence externally

We continue to inspire talent externally through our deep focus on Inclusion & Diversity and STEM (including our International Women’s Day celebration, Women on Walls campaign, STEM Network and external partnerships), showcasing equal and diverse Leadership to highlight viable career paths and build a strong pipeline of talent across all genders. This year we have continued our Women in Data Science programme for women seeking to advance their career in the fields of data science and analytics, and we are piloting a Girls in Analytics programme for transition year pupils.

5. Creating an inclusive culture

We are continuing to expand our focus on intersectionality across our inclusion & diversity networks, exploring how gender intersects with race, ethnicity, LGBTIQ+, disability, age and other dimensions of diversity. All our people take unconscious bias training through our learning platform. Our modern leadership development programme prepares our leadership to lead in an inclusive manner.

What additional data is available on our gender pay gap?

We are required to report on any legal entity with 250 or more employees, so we are publishing a further breakdown of statistics for specific entities within our operations in Ireland that individually meet the reporting threshold. The tables below also show sub-sections of this overall data for these two specific entities. Please note that the figures shown in these tables have already been accounted for in the reporting table for all employees at Accenture in Ireland.