Building rockets and bridging gaps: Gilmour Space’s approach to pay equity

In the wake of recent Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) pay gap data revelations, the spotlight has turned to how Australian tech companies are grappling with gender disparity and pay equity. Amid critiques and defenses from various industry leaders, Gilmour Space stands out for its unique figures, reporting -3.6% on the median base salary gender pay gap and -3.1% for total remuneration. This is a stark contrast to other tech startups in Australia.

The Queensland startup recently raised $55 million in Series D funding and this week announced getting the green light to open Gilmour Space’s Bowen Orbital Spaceport. Located in Bowen Queensland, it will be Australia’s first orbital spaceport and will offer commercial orbital launches such as satellites and rideshare launches to low earth orbits.

Meritocracy is Gilmour Space’s approach to hiring and pay

Gilmour Space’s co-founder and CEO, Adam Gilmour, is candid about not being the biggest fan of the WGEA data. Instead, he says the company’s success lies in its staunch commitment to meritocracy and an inclusive approach to recruitment and compensation.

“We didn’t like this thing because it was too blunt. We’re a meritocracy, big time. We pay for performance above all else,” Gilmour said.

“I don’t care what colour you are, what sex you are, what persuasion you are. All I care about is: can you build me rockets and satellites?”

He elaborates, saying the 17% average gender pay gap in Australia is a problem that stems from education and a continued lack of women going into engineering careers compared to men.

“We predominantly hire engineers and technicians, and women don’t go into engineering or technical jobs, anywhere close to 50% of men.”

Gilmour went on to say that part of the issue the company had with the WGEA data — despite doing well within it — was the lack of differentiation between job titles.

“For example, we have engineer one, engineer two, senior engineer, distinguished engineer. We have four job titles and they have salary bands in them,” Gilmour said.

“Where a person is in that functionality determines their salary, more than anything else.”

Gilmour explains that the company has an extremely high proportion of women in senior positions and in high-salaries jobs such as HR, finance and marketing, which contributed to its positive rank within the WGEA data.

“And then even within engineering and technicians, hand on my heart we don’t have any difference between men and women,” Gilmour said.

“People doing the same job get the same pay.”

Gilmour is also transparent about the nature of doing business and how that can impact pay, such as recruiting talent from other companies.

“I’m getting into the nitty gritty here, but if you have to bring someone in from another company, you normally have to give them a pay rise to come over,” Gilmour said.

“So you’ve got person A doing this job, and you and let’s say somebody leaves and you have to fill a replacement, person B may come in on 10% more. Now, it will be our objective to normalise them in the next two years. But in the short term, this person is paid more than that person.

“You could say ‘why don’t you just talk that other person up as well’, but if you did that, you get this massive wage inflation and then you go bankrupt.”

Despite this explanation, this isn’t something that happens a lot at Gilmour Space. Gilmour speaks about how the company is focused on gender equity and ensures people doing the same jobs are getting the same pay.

“I think one of the things that might explain it is that we try to hire a lot of entry-level graduates and entry-level technicians. They come in on the same pay and then as they come up, they’re getting paid more and more, but it’s similar,” Gilmour said.

“We might not have the phenomenon where we have to bring in a lot of five and ten-year veteran technicians or engineers that might have a big pay gap.

“We have always bought in a lot of graduates mainly because nobody knows rockets in Australia, so I can’t go and hire from other companies. I’ve got to train them myself.”

Gilmour Space’s approach extends beyond compensation, with Gilmour agreeing that more can be done to get more young girls and women interested in engineering and the importance of showcasing diverse role models and engaging with educational initiatives to inspire future generations.

“I definitely think we can get more women interested in it. We do have girl schools come, universities [women in] science. We try to encourage it.”