In the space of just a few years, TikTok has created real-world opportunity for a diverse range of artists, businesses, and creators who have harnessed the platform's creative potential to achieve their goals. As we scale our business in the UK, championing diversity and inclusion remains a core company value as we seek to build an equitable workforce reflecting the variety of content and communities that people on TikTok experience every day.

Explaining Gender Pay Gap reporting

Gender pay gap reporting is one way to track the progress we are making towards greater organisational equity and covers:

  • the difference in mean (the average) and median (the middle value) hourly pay between male and female employees
  • the difference in mean and median bonus pay between male and female employees
  • the proportion of men and women in a set of quartiles segmented according to hourly pay
  • the proportion of employees who received bonus payments

Our 2022 report

The reporting period for the 2022 Gender Pay Gap was another dynamic period of change for our business in the UK, with the total number of employees growing by more than 40% since our last report. Our people in the UK work across a diverse range of critical business functions including brand and creator engagement, e-commerce, monetisation, music, privacy, product, public policy, R&D and safety.

Firstly, both the mean (the average) and median (the middle value) hourly pay gap declined 3.7% and 10.9% respectively year-on-year. This means that the average hourly pay gap between male and female employees was 19.3% (i.e. women's hourly pay was 19.3% less than that of men's), while the median hourly pay gap was 19.4%.

Our 2022 report illustrates the importance of senior female representation as a contributing factor to reducing the pay gap.

As part of gender pay gap reporting requirements, the total employee population is divided into a set of quartiles determined by pay. There was continued progress in the representation of women in the two higher earning pay quartiles, with an increase of 2.6% in the top quartile and 2.5% in the upper middle quartile. Nearly 60% (59.5%) of all employees in the upper middle quartile are women, while 45.5% of the highest earners are also women. Continued improvements in representation in both of these quartiles should have a material impact on further closing the gap over time.

At the same time, progress made on this dimension may be undermined by a high level of female representation in the lower pay quartiles. Our data shows that women continue to account for a significant proportion of the population in both the lower middle and bottom pay quartiles, making up 61.3% of the former and 60.9% of the latter. Even with a high level of representation in the top two pay quartiles, such a level of representation in the two other quartiles may continue to be a significant contributing factor to the hourly pay gap.

Finally, the mean and median bonus gap declined 4.2% and 33.1% respectively year on year. The bonus gap data should be interpreted in the context of the rapid growth of our business at the time the data was captured. A significant proportion of eligible employees included in the reporting snapshot - and the pay gap data - were ineligible for a bonus due to their length of tenure.

Our D&I philosophy to drive change

As stated in previous reports, gender pay gap reporting is one metric that we use to measure our progress. Our broader diversity and inclusion strategy – ‘Powered by D&I’ – sets out three pillars that we believe will, over time, play a role in positively influencing the shape and composition of our workforce in the UK. These pillars are:

  1. People: prioritising specific actions such as diverse slate hiring, inclusive recruitment practices, and investment in leadership development initiatives across different departments.
  2. Platform: recognising and embracing the important role our own platform can play in elevating awareness relating to questions of diversity, race, gender identity and sexuality. As one example, during last month's LGBTQIA+ History Month, we launched a TikTok Unpacks video series with our LGBTQIA+ 'Trailblazers' to help our community learn more about queer history and culture. One of our trailblazers, Ssolana (@solanthagreenfairy), is a poet, songwriter and educator on issues affecting the LGBT+ community around the world.
  3. Partnerships: working with organisations focused on the representation of women, ethnic minorities and other under-represented groups to strengthen our strategy, including Stonewall, the Black Young Professionals Network, The Valuable 500, and I am Remarkable. Our aim is to collaborate with these organisations to develop and implement strategies that can help to address the challenges that these groups face. Through our partnerships, we hope to create a more equitable and inclusive workplace where everyone has the opportunity to thrive and succeed.

Our future commitment

As we continue to grow as a business in the UK, we are continuously improving and evolving our approach. We recognise the importance of fostering an inclusive and diverse workplace and we will continue working to create a culture that values and respects the unique perspectives and experiences of each individual employee.

Statutory declaration

We confirm that the information and data in this report are accurate and in line with the requirements of the Gender Pay Gap Reporting Regulations.

Signed by:


______________________________

ZHAO Tian

Director

(Director of TikTok Information Technologies UK Limited)