HKA Global supports the Australian Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s (‘WGEA’) publication of Australian gender pay gap data to inform more effective strategies and actions to promote gender equality in the workplace.
At HKA, all our employee decisions are based on merit. We ensure we reward results, which benefits our clients and employees while adhering to our Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (ED&I) principles of promoting fair and equal consideration for all.
Our Gender Pay Gap is one of the metrics for measuring merit-based gender equality across our global business. It is linked to our Total Reward and ED&I strategies to improve merit-based gender equality and is underpinned by our HKA People vision: Everything we do makes HKA a great place for our excellent people to work, grow and enjoy.
In this Employer Statement, you will find key details of HKA’s 2024-2025 Australian Gender Pay Gap results, our approach to our Gender Pay Gap, further context and drivers, followed by the actions and strategies we are taking to help improve our Gender Pay Gap in Australia.
What the Gender Pay Gap tells us: The Gender Pay Gap tells us the difference between the average or median pay between women and men within the organisation across the whole workforce (in this context, this is across all our Australian employees, regardless of role or level).
What the Gender Pay Gap does not tell us: The Gender Pay Gap is not the same as equal/fair pay as it does not indicate a disparity of pay within role levels. Equal/fair pay assesses whether individual women and men with equivalent levels of experience and performance are paid differently for the same or equivalent work.
HKA’s approach to our Gender Pay Gap:
At HKA, we are passionate about having a talented and increasingly diverse global workforce, and we are committed to organically achieving a global merit-based gender balance of 50:50. In Australia, we are pleased to see our median Gender Pay Gap steadily improving each year. While our average Gender Pay Gap has shown some fluctuation, we remain fully committed to ongoing progress and to continually improving our Gender Pay Gap.
Merit-based gender equality continues to be an area of focus for HKA, and in Australia, we have made meaningful progress year-on-year.
We know we still have work to do, as our results are higher than our industry benchmarks, and we are committed to continue building on these improvements in 2026 and beyond, which in turn will help to close our Australia Gender Pay Gap and further strengthen gender equality through fair and merit‑based decision-making.
HKA’s key 2024-2025 WGEA Australian Gender Pay Gap results
As of the required snapshot date 3 March 2025, HKA’s Australia Gender Pay Gap results were:
- HKA’s Australia median total remuneration gender pay gap in 2024-25 is 27.8%
- Definition: This is the difference between women’s and men’s median earnings (including bonus), expressed as a percentage of men’s earnings, across all levels.
- Change since 2023-24 results: Pleasingly, this median result has improved by 4.4% since our 2023-24 results, which were 32.2%.
- HKA Australia’s average total remuneration gender pay gap in 2024-25 was 39%
- Definition: This is the difference between women’s and men’s average earnings (including bonus), expressed as a percentage of men’s earnings, across all levels.
- Change since 2023-24 results: This average result has worsened by 5.4% since our 2023–24 outcome of 33.6%, giving us clear visibility of where to focus our efforts as we continue driving improvement. We should be mindful that business performance and employee headcount/performance does impact the year-on-year position.
The Australian government agency, WGEA, will on 3 March 2026, publish the full 2024-2025 report for all companies’ Gender Pay Gap results in Australia.
Gender Pay Gap Drivers at HKA
As of 3 March 2025, HKA in Australia had more men than women employees (68% vs. 32%). Additionally, we had more men in Australia-based management positions (71%) than women (29%), which typically attract higher total rewards and thus impacting our Gender Pay Gap.
At HKA, there were three main outcomes after applying the criteria of WGEA’s published Gender Pay Gap data, including:
- As of 3 March 2025, HKA’s Australian employee population comprised 32% women and 68% men. Employee gender at HKA is disclosed on a voluntary basis, and employees who identify as non-binary are currently excluded from the data, as per WGEA’s requirements. HKA supports WGEA’s ambition to move towards collecting data for employees who identify as non-binary.
- As of 3 March 2025, we had a higher percentage of men in management positions (71%) than women in management positions in Australia (29%), e.g. Partner, Principal, Director. However female representation in our upper pay quartile has improved since our 2023-24 results. Management roles typically attract higher total rewards, and proportionally, at HKA in Australia, more men occupy our management roles than women, thus impacting our Gender Pay Gap. This does not suggest pay disparity in role levels, as the Gender Pay Gap considers the whole workforce, regardless of role/level. Pleasingly, our female representation in our upper pay quartile has improved from 4% to 12% since our 2023-24 results.
- In February 2025, we were pleased to welcome a team of senior FACD hires to our HKA Australia team. This was a strategically important milestone that strengthens our capability and supports our high‑performing culture. This senior team included both male and female experts, yet there were more men in this group, which has influenced our 2024-25 average Gender Pay Gap. Notwithstanding this, it is encouraging that our median Gender Pay Gap continued to improve.
- We are a global business, and three women comprise our Global C-Suite: Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Chief People Officer and Regional Chief Executive Officer, International, who have global accountabilities that include Australia. As these women are employed in overseas HKA entities, they are excluded from the Australian WGEA Gender Pay Gap data. These three leaders are excluded as WGEA only reports on Australia-based employees. Had these leaders been allowed to be included, this would have had a positive impact on our Australian Gender Pay Gap.
Actions and Strategies
HKA continues to improve our Gender Pay Gap through a fair and merit-based total reward approach, clear career progression routes to Partnership, learning and development opportunities (including mentorship), family-friendly policies, and our dedicated ED&I Committees. We promote a healthy, open and honest high-performing culture and work to prevent discrimination.
HKA recognises that improving Gender Pay Gaps takes time, cultural change, and action in several different areas. Successful actions we are taking to continue to improve our Australian gender pay gap and tackling some of the drivers outlined above include:
- A fair and merit-based total reward approach, clearly communicated and embedded through the inclusion of gender and performance metrics to support fair and merit-based decision-making. In addition, we refer to objective internal and external benchmarking data to eliminate bias. We implement global equality, diversity and inclusion principles in all employment decisions.
- Clear career progression routes to Partnership – To positively influence the gender pay gap in our global Partner team, we have a self-application-based, robust, and transparent Partner track program that provides direction, mentorship and development to enable our top talent to achieve Partner status over a defined period.
- Learning and development opportunities, including mentoring – To help HKA employees progress in their careers, learning and development opportunities are available to all, regardless of role, level or location. HKA also has an established global mentor program supported by a mentor matching platform to help mentees grow because they have selected the mentor that suits them, providing them with opportunities to learn and develop professionally.
- Family-friendly policies – To support attraction and retention and gender equality, we improved our Australian parental leave policy during 2025. In addition, we support our employees’ flexible working arrangements to fit around their family life and in 2025, extended access to the Employee Assistance Programme to our employees’ families as well as our employees.
- Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (ED&I) Committees – HKA has established executive-sponsored, employee-led ED&I Committees in each of our regions. These committees are committed to improving gender equality, making HKA a more inclusive place to work for everyone, and coming together to recognise and celebrate noteworthy international days such as International Women’s Day.
- Promoting a healthy, open, and honest high-performing culture and preventing discrimination– HKA is an equal opportunities employer. We put merit first while believing that no one should be discriminated against because of their differences (e.g., age, disability, ethnicity, gender, religion or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander identity). Additionally, we ensure our employees know how they can raise concerns by our Chief People Officer writing to every employee at least twice a year, and we have embedded Grievance, Whistleblowing and Disciplinary policies.
At HKA, Equality is for everyone. Diversity valued. Inclusion always.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us via the contact details below.
Contact Details
Hayley Abrahams
Global Total Reward Manager
HayleyAbrahams@hka.com
Ph: +44 7521 389 640
Kate Wood
Partner, Chief People Officer
KateWood@hka.com
Ph: +44 7395 833 829
Elle Weeden
People Director, Asia Pacific
ElleWeeden@hka.com
+61 2 9255 9177
