Aardman Gender Pay Gap 2025
Aardman is a much‑loved British brand, celebrating 50 years of creative excellence, with our people and craft at the core of everything we do.
This longstanding commitment has helped us foster an inclusive culture of which we are very proud.
This report outlines our continued progress in addressing the gender pay gap and the actions we have taken to support all partners.
We remain committed to the gender pay and bonus gap analysis is based on data from the snapshot date of 5 April 2025.
The data contained in this report is accurate and published in accordance with the gender pay gap reporting guidelines and regulations.
gender pay & bonus gap
The gender pay gap is a percentage that measures the difference in average earnings between men and women in a company. Gender pay is different from equal pay. Equal pay means men and women are paid the same for doing the same or similar work, we regularly review this to ensure fairness. Gender pay looks at the difference in average pay between men and women across the whole business.
Under current reporting rules, gender is recorded in a binary way (men and women only). While this doesn’t reflect all gender identities, we recognise and welcome other gender identities, ensuring they are represented in our wider people data and surveys.
Gender Pay Gap reporting focuses on two measures:
Median pay – the difference between the middle-paid man and middle-paid woman when all salaries are ranked from lowest to highest.
Mean pay – the difference between the average pay of all men and all women.
Aardman’s data is summarised as:
Our 2025 Gender Pay Gap data shows some notable shifts in the distribution of men and women across our pay structure. The median gender pay gap has increased by 3.3%, while the mean pay gap has decreased slightly to 10.9%.
These two measures highlight different dynamics: the mean suggests a small improvement overall, whereas the median, more sensitive to workforce distribution, shows the effect of movement across the pay quartiles.
This year, our mean bonus pay gap has reduced to 59.6%. Importantly, more women (3.9%) were eligible for a bonus than men (2.9%), highlighting the positive impact of our inclusive culture and reward practices. Bonus payments to women also included maternity return-to-work and contractual bonuses, reflecting our commitment to fairness and support for all partners.
As in 2024, no company-wide profit share payment was made during the 12-month period to the snapshot date. When profit share is paid, all eligible partners receive the same amount regardless of salary. Differences in profit share amounts arise only where partners work part time and receive a pro-rated payment, a demographic in which women are more highly represented.
PAY QUARTILES
Quartiles are described as a division of an organisation into four groups of equal numbers, starting from the lowest-paid group (lower quartile) to your highest-paid group (upper quartile). The data shows the percentage distribution of male and female partners at each quartile. As the calculations are based on the mean and median hourly rate of all relevant pay employees, the upper quartile of our population will contribute disproportionately to the pay gap calculations.
We have seen an increase in the percentage of women in the lower two quartiles from 58.2% in 2024 to 63% in 2025, contributing to the increase in the median gap. It is encouraging, however, that we have the highest percentage of women in the upper quartile since reporting began, at 43.2%, and that this quartile shows a pay gap in favour of women at –4.4%.
Since the snapshot date of 5th April 2024 and the publication of this report, we are pleased to see that the composition of the Executive Board is now 5 women and 2 men, showing Aardman’s commitment to have a diverse and proportionate composition at our most senior level.
CLOSING THE GAP
We remain fully committed to taking meaningful action to reduce the Gender Pay Gap at Aardman. The following initiatives continue to be a priority:
Talent Acquisition
We are committed to delivering a fair and transparent external and internal recruitment journey for all candidates, and this is demonstrated through our ways of working. We ask all our candidates, during the hiring process, whether they require any additional flexibility and are committed to incorporating these requests where possible. We continue to aim for a 50/50 gender split in shortlisting for all vacancies, monitoring recruitment language for bias and actively promoting flexibility and hybrid working.
We continue to see an increase in women in roles more traditionally held by men, and we are optimistic this pipeline will deliver a more equal gender split across all pay quartiles over time. We will undertake a targeted review of pay and progression in our lower two quartiles, particularly in pillars where the concentration of women has grown, to ensure all partners have clear and equitable pathways to advancement.
Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
Our inclusive culture is central to what makes Aardman great. With a strongly represented female workforce, we recognise that gender dynamics are a key driver of our ED&I strategy. We are committed to strengthening our approach to equity, diversity and inclusion through this strategy.
We will continue our commitment to our Partner Engagement Survey to be able to understand and develop action plans based on gender specific feedback with questions focused on equal opportunities, development, and work life balance.
Our ‘AardWomen’ group provides an inclusive and supportive space for people of all genders to share experiences within the industry and the workplace and ensures focussed discussion and awareness building on key topics. Its aim it to support and enable Aardman’s talented intersectional female population to reach their full potential and provide education to all partners on women’s topics.
Our Mentorship Scheme has launched a 3rd cohort in 2025, pairing partners across all areas of the business to share knowledge and support professional development. The past cohorts have seen over 40 pairings.
We will continue to conduct a selection of targeted training such Unconscious Bias, Anti-Racism or Psychological Safety across the business, building on the progress we have already seen from these initiatives.
Partner Experience
We prioritise the employee experience when shaping policies, procedures and our culture. We are proud of our family friendly policies including Fertility Treatment and Breastfeeding to support women returning from maternity leave. We launched our Working Parents Hub since the publication of our last report. This is a space designed to support parents balancing work and family life. It offers practical tips, resources, and real-life advice to help partners thrive as both a parent and a professional.
More recently we are proud to successfully achieve Tommy's Pregnancy & Parenting at Work Champion status which reenforces our continued commitment to supporting our partners in this space.
We are committed to supporting employees at every stage in their life and continue to use our Menopause Policy, for employees either experiencing or due to begin the menopause, which details a range of support available and through our partnership with the Film, TV & Charity? EAP? can offer additional, independent advice and support to employees.
Our hybrid working model also remains in place for partners where the role permits. This flexibility allows partners to balance their career and personal lives and ensure that employees are working in a flexible environment.
Learning & Development
We are committed to an ongoing journey to strengthen Learning & Development, Talent, and Performance. Our focus is on empowering and retaining talent, expanding career growth and leveraging internal mobility whilst ensuring equitable opportunities that support diversity and progression.
We are proud to be able to offer all partners free access to our publicly accessible Stop Motion One, Stop Motion Two and Foundation courses such as Storyboarding, CG and Model Making, through the Aardman Academy. We also offer a range of diverse range of courses that develop both soft and technical skills, ensuring we meet the evolving needs of our business. This provides a well-rounded approach to learning across topics such as Presenting with Impact, Women in Leadership, Courageous Conversations and Mental Health Awareness as well as Manager Bootcamps and Building Resilience.
summary
We recognise that our median pay gap has increased this year, largely due to changes in workforce composition, and we are focused on addressing this. We are confident that our ongoing initiatives, supported by stronger data insights, will help create a more balanced representation across all levels.
At the same time, we’re proud to have our highest proportion of women in the upper pay quartile to date, and that our Operations pillar has achieved near pay parity. We’re also encouraged by the continued reduction in our mean pay gap.
Beyond the numbers, we are proud of the breadth of work underway to build a more inclusive Aardman. We remain committed to reducing the Gender Pay Gap and building a fair, inclusive and equitable workplace for everyone at Aardman.