UK fintech paying £93k per head ramped up tech hiring, widened gender pay gap
ClearBank, a London payments fintech founded by 'the inventor of e-commerce' Nick Ogden, had a very good 2023; its recently released annual report shows that revenues at the firm almost doubled as it turned a £7.1m loss the previous year to an $18.4m profit. Over the same period, hiring boomed and pay per head increased.
Click here to sign up for our fintech newsletter 🤖
In 2023, Clearbank increased its average headcount by 46% to 516 employees. Its technology team saw the biggest rise, from 132 to 200 employees. Operations, sales and marketing had similar increases. Interestingly, two functions saw headcount drop; risk and compliance, and programme management (where only one person worked last year).
The tech hires are the likely cause of the pay rise. Clearbank's employees earned total compensation ('salaries and bonuses' plus 'share-based payments') of £86.7k on average in 2022; that number increased to £92.9k in 2023.
Most of the extra pay is going to men. The report states that the gender pay-gap has widened at the fintech, "substantially driven by the scaling up of our technology team, where roles have comparatively higher salaries." Clearbank says it pays men and women the same for identical roles, but "available candidate gender mix in the [tech] industry" made the engineering roles harder to fill with women.
The report also highlighted that Clearbank introduced "a truly flexible working philosophy," which it also defines as being a conscious move away from the 'remote first' label. Its 30-day work from anywhere policy remains intact after the change.
Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, Whatsapp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher. Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email editortips@efinancialcareers.com. Signal also available.
Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: all our comments are moderated by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. Eventually it will – unless it’s offensive or libelous (in which case it won’t.)
