Pearson Education

Apr 4, 2022

PEARSON : Financial Document Message : A message from Ali Bebo At Pearson we are committed to closing the gender pay gap and ensuring we provide equal opportunities for our people, both men and women, to thrive in our company. Pearson's future strategy includes a commitment to invest in diverse talent and we understand that being an inclusive company is essential to our success. Pearson has seen a continued year on year improvement in its Great Britain gender pay gap since reporting began in 2017. This year, our fifth year of reporting, we were disappointed to see that the median gender pay gap (as of the snapshot date of 5 April 2021) had increased to 13% (from 10% in 2020). In part, this reflects the fact that Pearson saw a disproportionate number of women leaving the business in Great Britain for different reasons and as a result of some senior roles moving to other geographies as the company develops a more globally diverse leadership footprint. Whilst there are fewer women at the most senior levels in the company (currently 45% of senior leadership roles are held by women), this year we again reviewed individual pay levels for all senior roles finding that women in this group are paid either at or above market levels for comparable roles. Furthermore, we are making changes to our UK recruitment practices to no longer ask for candidates' current pay details - only pay expectations - to ensure we are not perpetuating any existing pay inequities. This is already the common approach in the US where the majority of Pearson's workforce is employed. Continuing our commitment to creating an inclusive and diverse workforce that represents all of our stakeholders, in 2021 and again in 2022 we have included a measure in our company-wide Annual Incentive Plan with targets for investing in a diverse talent pipeline and increasing representation at leadership levels. For 2022, the portion of the bonus relating to diversity targets will not pay out unless at least 50% of participants in internal leadership development and mentoring programmes are women and/or of ethnic minority background and women are represented in at least half of all leadership succession plans (as well as 20% ethnic minority representation). Further information on Pearson's diversity goals is shown in the 2021 Annual Report which can be found here: https://plc.pearson.com/en-GB/investors/2021-annual-report- accounts Ali Bebo Ali Bebo As the executive responsible for oversight of GB Gender Pay Gap reporting across all statutory entities, I confirm that the data and information presented in this report are accurate and meet the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap information) Regulations 2017. 2 Our Great Britain Gender Pay Gap Pearson reports pay gap data for all our employees in Great Britain regardless of whether or not they work in companies that exceed the reporting threshold of 250 or more employees. Pearson has seven group legal entitles across Great Britain which operate a payroll. Together, they employ 3,377 people as at the time of publishing. We disclose our pay and bonus gender pay gap data for all employees as we believe this consolidated figure is the most meaningful and representative picture of our employee footprint in Great Britain. Two group companies had 250 or more employees and so were within the scope of the regulations. Together, these two entities (Pearson Education Limited and Pearson Professional Assessments Limited) represented 80% of our workforce in Great Britain. 2021