2025 Spirit AeroSystems (Europe) Limited UK Gender Pay Gap Report
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Introduction
Spirit AeroSystems (Europe) Limited (‘Spirit’ or ‘the Company’) values our employees and the contribution they make. We pay all of our employees commensurate with the market for the position they are in and their unique skills and experience. Spirit employees enjoy a working environment where there are equal opportunities for everyone to fulfil their potential and contribute to the success of the business, irrespective of gender.
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Nature of Business
Spirit is the wholly owned subsidiary of Spirit AeroSystems, Inc., a global company. Spirit’s customers include Airbus and Boeing. Spirit designs, develops, and manufactures complex structures for the aerospace industry. Spirit’s manufacturing facility is located in Prestwick, Scotland.
Spirit had 1160 Full Pay Relevant Employees at the snapshot date of 5th April 2024, comprising of various skill-sets including; design, engineering, transfer and project management skills, as well as a highly skilled manufacturing population.
The workforce is predominately male, with 108 female members of staff (9.32%) and 1052 male members of staff (90.68).
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Gender Pay Calculations
The Gender Pay Gap (the 'GPG') is a measure of the difference in the average pay of men and women – regardless of the nature of their work – employed by Spirit.
Annually, companies which employ more than 250 employees must report the following:
- Mean and Median GPG in hourly pay;
- Mean and Median bonus GPG;
- Proportion of men and women who receive a bonus; and
- Distribution of men and women across pay quartiles.
The GPG shows the difference between the mean (average) and median (mid-point) hourly earnings and bonus payments for both male and female employees, expressed as a percentage.
Distribution of all employees across the pay quartiles (at April 5, 2024) Male Female Upper Quartile 85.86% 14.14% Upper Middle Quartile 90.34% 9.66% Lower Middle Quartile 96.20% 3.80% Lower Quartile 90.34% 9.66%
Gender Pay Gap in Hourly Pay:
- Mean Pay Gap: - 7.90 %. This means that the mean average hourly rate for female employees is -7.90% more than for male employees.
- Median Pay Gap: - 9.40% This means the median hourly rate for female employees is - 9.40% more than for male employees
In the 12 months preceding April 2024, 88.84% of males and 88.28% of females received a bonus.
Bonus GPG:
- Mean Bonus Gap: -91.70% Mean (average) female bonus earnings are
-91.70% higher than male employees
- Median Bonus Gap:- 2.81% Median (middle) female bonus earnings are
-2.81 higher than male employees.
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Steps to address the Gender Pay Gap – Apprenticeships
In 2017 we implemented our Graduate Apprenticeship Programme, which currently has 15 participants across both Engineering and Business Management degrees, with 20% female participation. We are actively working with Strathclyde University regarding further opportunities for enrolment which will commence in September 2025.
Our Modern Apprenticeship Programme continues to mature, with a current population of 49 employees engaged on a 4-year fixed term contract. We are actively recruiting a further 15 Apprentices in 2025. The MA population equates to 7% of our manual workforce. Of the current 49 employees on the Apprenticeship programme, 8% are female.
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Recruitment
In 2018, Spirit demonstrated our commitment to see gender balance at all levels of the business by committing to the UK government’s Women in Aviation and Aerospace Charter. The charter commits Spirit to drive towards an aspiration to see gender balance at all levels across the industry.
Spirit will continue to support females into the business and we continue to review and improve our workplace policies in support of family friendly initiatives including growth in flexible working. Of our current flexible workers, 30% are female.
Since January 2022 to date (March 2025), we have recruited approximately 480 people into the business in various roles and levels, with 9% of these being female.
Positive Steps to Recruitment
Spirit AeroSystems recognize that females are still under-represented in STEM roles nationally and we are no different to that. In order to address this, we have various initiatives where employees promote these careers within the school environment – both at primary and secondary level. We have a number of females within the business who support these initiatives and continue to reinforce the message that there are lots of opportunities in this field.
2024 saw a re-launch of our Work Experience programme, connecting local schools to our industry. This continues to evolve and be successful in providing explorative experiences to young people interested in a variety of careers.
We currently have 21% of our Senior Leadership positions held by females and as we move into 2025, a key focus for the site is Succession Planning with a number females being developed for key positions.
Finally, some activities we are currently considering to further promote our industry and increase female applicants are:
- Review Spirit adverts to ensure they are written gender neutral
- Further exploration of this topic as part of our Diversity Council
- Expanding our Learning Academy to incorporate more in person STEM events in local schools and career fayres
Spirit Prestwick Manufacturing Operations
The Aerospace sector continues to show significant appetite to grow as we see the paying public return to pre-pandemic passenger numbers, and with that comes the demand for new and more efficient aircraft. Passenger numbers are growing year on year since then and there is simply not enough aircraft available to supply that demand. Airbus and Boeing, the two main aircraft manufactures cannot provide enough for two main reasons. The aircraft sector supply chain, having slowed down, is finding it difficult to recruit the number of staff with the appropriate skill set that is necessary to manufacture the products and with every other manufacturing industry ramping up, not just aerospace, these companies can only grow as fast as the resources become available. Also, the geo-political landscape in the Middle East and with Ukraine and Russia at war, the raw material supply from these regions is drastically reduced. As such with these material and resource challenges, it is difficult for Airbus and Boeing to meet the airlines expectations and equally, the airlines to meet the public demand.
At Spirit Aerosystems Prestwick, all our manufacturing programs have a healthy order backlog on all our programs and are actively recruiting over 300 employees in in the last 2 years. Like our supply chain, the challenges in finding the relevant skills set within the open market has seen our recruitment starting to slow. Therefor we have engaged on an up-skilling programme in conjunction with Ayrshire Collage. This will see Semiskilled employees undertake a 2-year development journey to become Grade A operators within our Factory.
Spirit are part of the wider Prestwick Aerospace manufacturing community and play an active part in the regions skilled manufacturing talent sector and remain committed to providing many exciting opportunities for people who would have previously been employed in a non-aerospace environment. It will also allow Spirit to broaden the diversity of our workforce in line with the gender-based initiatives as mentioned above.
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