Workforce Insight Profile 2024

• In contrast to recent years, 2024 saw an increase in employees, filled positions and full-time equivalent roles – reaching the highest levels in six years
• Consistently the vast majority of staff live in close proximity to Portsmouth; 97% within PO or SO postal districts in 2024
• The profile of staff has remained consistent in recent years in terms of age, gender and ethnic origin, although does not reflect that of the local population
• Almost two thirds of staff are female (64%) – they continue to dominate part-time roles and are more prevalent in all directorates except Portsmouth International Port where 83% of staff are male
• Whilst the council has ageing workforce, it employs a spread of people from across all age groups. In every directorate, the youngest and oldest employees continue to be most likely to be in lower pay bands
• The proportion of staff from ethnic minority groups has increased. 8% are from ethnic minority groups (up 2% from 2023)
• There has been a gradual year-on-year increase since 2019 in the proportion of staff with no religion, and a year-on-year decrease in the proportion of staff who are Christian. In 2024, Christianity is still the most prevalent religion (41%), whilst 53% have no religion
• Just over a third of staff work part-time (34%). Adult Services has the highest proportion of part-time staff – almost half of all staff here are females working part-time
• April 2024 saw a significant surge in new starters, with the majority joining Housing, Neighbourhood and Building Services which was due to waste management services being brought in-house

The aim of this report is to provide an annual summary of the profile of the workforce for Portsmouth City Council. The two main aims are:

• To support the Council’s commitment to equality and diversity
• To fulfil the statutory requirement to publish workforce equality data under the Equality Act 2010

The findings of this report are based on analysis of Portsmouth City Council employee data. All data preceding 1st July 2021 is based on employee data held on EBS Oracle whilst all subsequent data is from employee data held on Fusion.

All information in this report is based on employee data from 1st December for the appropriate year unless otherwise stated. The data does not include agency staff.

Base sizes

Unless otherwise stated, the reported base always refers to the number of employees. Portsmouth City Council does not hold complete data on every employee (either because the question was not asked at enrolment or due to employees opting out of providing specific pieces of personal data), therefore the base sizes vary from question to question. Where employees hold multiple roles, the role in which they work the greatest number of hours has been used for reporting purposes

• Portsmouth City Council (PCC) consistently maintains data on directorate, gender, age, and pay band
• Since 2022, the proportion of staff for whom PCC holds ethnic origin and religion data has remained steady at 82%
• The transition to Fusion in 2021 led to decline in recorded disability data – now self-reported, but this is gradually improving year-on-year

This chart shows the percentage of Portsmouth City Council staff for whom data is held in various categories from 2019 to 2024.
Directorate: 100% in 2019, 100% in 2020, 100% in 2021, 100% in 2022, 100% in 2023, 100% in 2024.
Gender: 100% in 2019, 100% in 2020, 100% in 2021, 100% in 2022, 100% in 2023, 100% in 2024.
Age: 100% in 2019, 100% in 2020, 100% in 2021, 100% in 2022, 100% in 2023, 100% in 2024.
Pay band: 99% in 2019, 99% in 2020, 100% in 2021, 100% in 2022, 100% in 2023, 100% in 2024.
Postcode: 96% in 2019, 96% in 2020, 77.73% in 2021, 99.97% in 2022, 100% in 2023, 94.84% in 2024.
Ethnic origin: 78% in 2019, 75% in 2020, 80% in 2021, 81.62% in 2022, 82.3% in 2023, 82.41% in 2024.
Religion: 34% in 2019, 33% in 2020, 47% in 2021, 50.78% in 2022, 54.40% in 2023, 57.22% in 2024.
Disability: 62% in 2019, 59% in 2020, 5% in 2021, 4.9% in 2022, 11.06% in 2023, 15.01% in 2024.

Base: (Dec) 2019 (3,638) | 2020 (3,796) | 2021 (3,884) | 2022 (3,797) | 2023 (3,735) | 2024 (3,918)