As Marshmallow has now reached 330+ employees in the UK, we are publishing our second gender pay gap report.

The UK government introduced gender pay gap reporting in 2017 to improve pay transparency and encourage businesses to address disparities in average earnings between men and women. Companies with 250 or more employees must report their gender pay gap annually, using a ‘snapshot date’ of 5 April each year. This ensures consistency in reporting and allows for year-on-year comparisons.

Download the full report.

What is a gender pay gap?

The gender pay gap is the difference in average earnings between men and women across a company, spanning all roles and levels.

The gender pay gap isn’t a measure of the difference in pay between men and women for doing the same job. That is known as equal pay. We’re confident that we don’t have an equal pay issue at Marshmallow.

We have structured job levels and salary ranges for every role, and use a robust performance review and salary review process twice a year to make sure people are being fairly rewarded based on performance.

We are required to report on gender pay gap data across three key areas: pay quartiles, hourly pay and bonus pay.

Our Pay Gap

Hourly

The data below highlights the gender pay gap in terms of hourly wages, for clarity this reflects reflects role-based distribution, not unequal pay for equal work.

Bonus

The Government requires us to publish the same figures for bonuses. The reporting period covers the 12 months prior to the snapshot date, 5th April 2025. ‘Bonus’ is classified as performance-based bonuses and referral bonuses.

A high proportion of both men (73.96%) and women (81.37%) received a bonus in the reporting period. Despite this, our bonus pay gap is significant and, in fact, more pronounced than our hourly pay gap.

We believe our bonus pay gap is more pronounced as our performance bonus is structured in tiers, with those at higher levels receiving a greater percentage of base salary as a bonus, amplifying the impact of the existing hourly pay gap.

Quartiles

Gender pay gap reporting requires us to analyse and publish Marshmallow’s pay distribution by quartiles. We analysed the data by dividing our 341 employees into four equal quartiles, with approximately 85 people in each, from the lowest to the highest earners.

Given that our workforce is 50% female and 50% male, in an ideal world, we would have a similar gender balance across all quartiles.

In reality, we have a greater percentage of men in the upper and upper middle quartiles, and more women in the lower quartiles:

The quartile distribution helps provide valuable context as to why our gender pay gap is so pronounced. This is largely due to the concentration of men in higher-paid roles and women in lower-paid roles.

Why we have a Gender Pay Gap

To summarise, our gender pay gap is primarily driven by the following factors:

Fewer women in Product and Tech

Improving female representation in Product and Tech, and Engineering in particular, is one of our most significant challenges.

In 2025, the context is that women make up just 16.9% of the UK's engineering and technology workforce (backend engineering is among the most male-dominated specialisations within that). The undergraduate pipeline is similarly narrow, with women representing only 19–21% of Computer Science and Engineering graduates.

There is a clear opportunity to improve how we attract female applicants, from the way we write and target job adverts, to where we recruit, and how our employer brand speaks to underrepresented candidates.

Equally important is what happens after hiring: ensuring women in technical roles have visible career pathways, active sponsorship, and equal access to development opportunities.

More women in Operational roles

An outsized proportion of our female employees are in lower-paid operational roles, particularly in Claims and Customer Care. These roles typically have lower earning potential and fewer pathways into higher-paying positions.

Clearer career paths and progression linked to pay will give us an opportunity in this area, however, it's likely that a significant number of employees in these roles will continue to be represented in our lower pay quartiles.

Addressing our pay gap

The table below compares our 2025 figures against the previous year’s snapshot date:


Our pay gap has widened year-on-year. While this reflects structural factors, we recognise the importance of addressing this trend and are focused on the areas where we can have the greatest impact.

The upper middle pay quartile women percentage has remained broadly flat (45% in 2024 vs 44% in 2025). The increase in our pay gap is primarily driven by a widening of the median hourly pay gap, reflecting the concentration of men in higher-paid roles.

While more women are receiving bonuses than men (81.37% vs 73.96%), the mean bonus gap has increased due to senior roles being disproportionately held by men.

What are we doing well

Salary ranges

Since 2022, we have maintained transparent, structured salary ranges that are published internally and communicated directly to employees. This ensures that everyone at Marshmallow understands how pay decisions are made and where they sit within our framework. This has set a foundation for ensuring pay equity across gender and other demographics.

Calibration and performance ratings

Our performance calibration ensures that decisions about performance ratings are consistent, fair and anchored in what genuinely great performance looks like at Marshmallow. By holding a high bar across the organisation and applying it consistently, calibration protects against bias while reinforcing a culture where performance is recognised and rewarded on merit leading to fairer outcomes on salary, bonus and promotions.

Where there is opportunity to impact our gender pay gap

• Increasing female representation in engineering hiring through targeted sourcing, partnerships, and interview process improvements
• Increasing female representation at senior levels across the organisation
• Driving career progression in our lower level Claims roles
• Continue to enhance our parental leave and fertility benefits
• Audit parental leave uptake by gender
• Improve our hiring process - gender balanced interview panels and training to reduce bias

Conclusion

Our 2025 gender pay gap report reflects both the progress we've made and the work still ahead of us. Our structured salary ranges, calibration processes, and regular pay reviews give us a solid foundation. But there is still a gap in average earnings between men and women, and it has widened year-on-year.

The primary drivers are well understood: an underrepresentation of women in Product and Tech (particularly in Engineering) and a concentration of women in lower-paid operational roles in Claims and Customer Care. These are structural challenges that won't be resolved quickly, and we're not going to pretend otherwise.

Closing this gap meaningfully will require sustained effort across hiring, progression, and how we develop talent at every level. There are things we can point to with genuine pride, and a greater proportion of women received bonuses this year than men.

Our focus going forward is where we can have the greatest impact: increasing female representation in engineering and product hiring, creating clearer progression pathways for women in operational roles, and continuing to foster an environment where talent is recognised and rewarded fairly.

We are committed to reporting transparently on this each year because accountability and impact matters at Marshmallow.