Employees safely walking next to HME at West Angelas Mine

Pay equity

Georgie Bezette

Our commitment to fair and equal pay

A message from Georgie Bezette, Chief People Officer

At Rio Tinto, we’ve been on a journey to build a more inclusive, safe and respectful workplace for everyone.


A big part of this has been our deliberate focus on making sure that people with similar skills, experience and contributions are paid equally for the same or comparable work.

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As a global company, we want fairness and equity to be at the heart of everything we do. We’re committed to building an inclusive organisation that reflects the societies and communities we operate in. We know diverse teams make better decisions, which leads to better outcomes for everyone, because that's when you unleash the full power, the full creativity, the full energy, of our people.

Our pay equity strategy is all about ensuring fairness in our pay outcomes. It's a fundamental part of how we approach pay at Rio Tinto. We invest a significant portion of our annual budget in our people's Pay Health. Over time, this has helped us achieve neutral pay gaps for base pay.

Every year, we report on our equal pay and gender pay gaps using best practice methodology. Our annual data report that we share with the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) in Australia plays an important role in how we address gender pay in one of our largest geographical areas.

We know that our industry needs to change, and as one of the world’s largest mining companies, we have a crucial role to play.

We are fully dedicated to providing fair and equal pay, improving gender representation, and building a more respectful and inclusive workplace.

We are taking bold steps to maintain our pay equity and breaking down cultural barriers through concrete actions and initiatives. This includes strong support from senior leadership, education for leaders, mentoring and career development programs.

Our Living Wage accreditation further reinforces our commitment to fair pay.

Join us on our journey at Rio Tinto, where we champion equitable pay and where we are building an inclusive, diverse culture.

Together, let’s make Rio Tinto a place where everyone feels valued and fairly treated.

 

Equal pay gap

Our equal pay gap, the primary lens we use when assessing gender pay, measures the extent to which women and men employed by our company in the same location and performing work of equal value receive the same pay. In 2024, we reported a Group level equal pay gap of less than 1.5%* in favor of men.

Gender pay gap

Gender pay gap is a measure of the difference between the average earnings of women and men across the Group (excluding incentive pay), regardless of role, expressed as a percentage of men’s earnings. In 2024, we reported a Group level gender pay gap of less than 1%* in favour of women consistent with previous years.

*As reported in our 2024 Annual Report and based on full time equivalent, contractual base salary

We are now a Living Wage employer

Further reinforcing our approach to fair and equal pay is our recent global Living Wage Employer accreditation from the Fair Wage Network (FWN), which we achieved in 2024.

This milestone confirms that our employees are paid a living wage, ensuring sufficient income for an acceptable standard of living. The accreditation is reflective of our pay levels representing a minimum income required to cover essential expenses such as food, water, housing, education, health care, transport, clothing, and other essential needs, including provision for unexpected events.

Being a Living Wage Employer reflects our core values of caring for our people, their families and communities, ensuring they can maintain a decent quality of life, free from financial hardship. We believe this not only promotes employee wellbeing but contributes to broader societal benefits through reduced pay inequity.

This accreditation is a key part of our pay equity strategy, and provides an important measure of our progress in delivering fair and equitable pay.

Gender pay gap

  • Australia

    Gender Pay Gap – Australia1

    Rio Tinto participates in country-specific reporting, such as the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) in Australia. The current WGEA report reflects 2023/2024 data submitted in 2024. Variances in reporting timeframe and methodology mean that the outcomes are not directly comparable to our Group-level reporting on gender pay, but they provide valuable insight into our equal and fair pay practices.

    A summary of our WGEA gender pay outcomes is outlined below:

     
    Rio Tinto
    Mining industry
      2023/2024 reporting year (published in March 2025)
    Average base salary  0.5% +Women

    16.6% +Men

    Median base salary 0.6% +Men 17.9% +Men
    Average total remuneration 7.7% +Men 19.8% +Men
    Median total remuneration  12.2% +Men 19.9% +Men

     

     1 As calculated by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency

    • Our WGEA average base salary pay gap is 0.5% in favour of women, compared to the mining industry average pay gap of 16.6% in favour of men.
    • While we expect to see small shifts year on year, our 2024 outcome reflects a neutral pay gap and reinforces our commitment to fair and equal pay setting.
    • Our WGEA average total remuneration pay gap is 7.7% in favour of men, compared to the mining industry average gender pay gap of 19.8% in favour of men.
    • Our total remuneration pay gap is largely attributed to the under representation of women in operational roles, where a higher set of allowances compensate for hardship factors (for example, living and working remotely, payment for additional hours and working nights, weekends and public holidays), typically between 15% and 25% depending on occupational activities.

    For more detail on our WGEA gender pay disclosures, see Our Rio Tinto Statement – WGEA gender pay gap.

  • UK

    Gender pay gap - UK

    The methodology required by the UK regulations differs from our approach to assessing gender pay equity. 

    The UK methodology calculates the difference in average pay and bonuses between all men and women within an employing entity. It is expressed as a percentage of men’s earnings. This differs from Equal Pay, which means that men and women in the same employment performing equal work must receive equal pay. 

    We have published combined figures for Rio Tinto London Limited (RTLL) and Rio Tinto Mining and Exploration Limited, as set out below: 

    Rio Tinto UK Gender Pay Gap Metrics (UK Government Methodology) 1

    Gender pay gap disclosable metrics

    (see below for definitions)

    Results RTLL

    (April 2024)

    Results RTLL

    (April 2023)

    Mean hourly gender pay gap2

    24%

    34.5%

    Median hourly gender pay gap2

    17.1%

    25.4%

    Mean bonus pay gap for the year3

    62.9%

    71.8%

    Median bonus pay gap for year3

    28.2%

    43.5%

    Proportion of men receiving a bonus payment4

    95%

    86%

    Proportion of women receiving a bonus payment4

    95%

    85%

     

    Notes:

    1 Year on year variances in the gaps are primarily a reflection of changes in demographics from employee movement across the two periods.

    2 Indicates by how much women’s mean/median hourly rate is lower than men.

    3 Indicates by how much women’s mean/median bonus is lower than men.

    4 All current UK employees are eligible for a bonus. Percentages less than 100% reflect employees joining after the bonus cut-off period.

     

    As at April 2024
    As at April 2023

    Proportion of men and women in each quartile pay band

    Men

    Women

    Men

    Women

    Lower pay quartile

    43%

    57%

    34%

    66%

    Lower middle pay quartile

    59%

    41%

    47%

    53%

    Upper middle pay quartile

    60%

    40%

    62%

    38%

    Upper pay quartile

    71%

    29%

    75%

    25%

     

    Definitions used for UK disclosures in the table above:

    Mean/median gender pay gap

    Difference between the mean/median hourly rate of pay paid to men and women (employees whose pay has been reduced as a result of leave and therefore are not "full-pay relevant" are excluded from the analysis). A positive value indicates that the hourly pay for men is higher than for women.

    Mean/median bonus pay gap

    Difference between the mean/median bonus pay paid to men and women (employees not in receipt of a bonus are excluded from the analysis). A positive value indicates that the bonus for men is higher than for women.

    Prop. men/women receiving bonus

    Proportion of men/women who were paid a bonus.

    Prop. men/women in each quartile band

    Proportion of men/women employees in 4 quartile bands, which are calculated by dividing the employee population into 4 equal parts.

    Commentary on Results for Rio Tinto London Limited

    Gender pay gap calculations, including the UK pay gap methodology, are deeply influenced by the seniority of men and women in an organisation and industry.

    Women continue to be underrepresented in senior roles at Rio Tinto, and this is evident in Rio Tinto London Limited, where employees are primarily located in a small corporate office in London, which contains some of the most senior roles in the company. As representation of women at senior levels is lower, this proportionally affects the size of the UK gender pay gap metrics. The approach to addressing this in the UK is the same as our global goals, including targets to increase the representation of women in Rio Tinto.

    Pleasingly, progress is being made with a lower mean hourly gender pay gap and lower median hourly gender pay gap in 2024.

    Hourly pay gap

    The hourly pay gap reflects the number of women in senior roles at Rio Tinto London Limited, as evidenced by the percentage of women in roles paid in the upper quartile or middle upper quartile.

    It is worth noting that the reported level of gender pay gap is materially lower when there are equal numbers of men and women at a given level of seniority. For example, in middle management and middle professional roles, which are the most balanced in terms of gender representation for Rio Tinto in the UK, the mean and median Gender Pay Gap is 4% and 6% in favour of men respectively at 5 April 2024.

    Bonus pay gap (Variable pay)

    The ‘bonus’ primarily includes the value of short (STIP) and long term (LTIP) incentives.

    Consistency and fairness checks are conducted annually on STIP and LTIP awards as part of the Annual Remuneration Review.

    The ‘bonus’ pay gap is primarily driven by a higher representation of men in upper bands, which attract higher salaries, STIP and LTIP opportunities.

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