Interpreting the results
Care should be taken when interpreting the results in this chapter or the accompanying Excel Annex 1 (see Resources on the Overview page), particularly those that show differences in earnings according gender, age band or working hours bands. There are a variety of factors that may contribute to differences in incomes, including but not limited to the issues outlined in this section.
Contractor GPs’ earnings may be affected by the terms of any partnership agreements in effect for their practices. For example, some partners may invest in the practice premises, and such equity partners would receive taxable income as a result of this investment which could result in their having overall higher earnings than the other partners. No information is available on the age and gender profile of these equity partners, but it may be the case that younger GPs face greater pressures on their incomes and thus have less capacity for making such an investment. While females make up 43.2 percent of the overall contractor GP population, this figure falls to only 24.9 per cent of contractor GPs aged 60 and over and 41.3 per cent of GPs aged 50 to 59. It is therefore possible that the percentage of female equity partners is far lower than the comparable male percentage, which may partially account for the lower earnings of female contractor GPs.
It is not unreasonable that older GPs, having greater experience, receive higher earnings than their younger and less experienced colleagues. In addition, older contractor GPs may be eligible for seniority payments which are based upon a variety of factors including years of reckonable service. As female GPs are more likely to take career breaks, including absence for maternity leave, many may have fewer years’ reckonable service than male GPs of the same age, which would affect the size of any seniority payment received.
It is also possible that female GPs, both contractor and salaried, may be more likely to work fewer hours within the weekly working hours bands used in this report, which would have the effect of reducing their average income when compared to male GPs within the same band. Please refer to the GP population gender split for more details.
Known issues
Working hours
Many GPs work longer than their contracted hours and therefore the actual number of hours worked could be far higher than is suggested by the three bandings.
It could be the case that GPs who are apparently part-time according to the wMDS data also work additional hours elsewhere, for example delivering primary care in a hospital or alternative setting. Although relevant income would be recorded in the self-assessment tax return, these GPs would appear to be part-time for the purposes of this analysis.
The weekly hours bands supplied to HMRC have been calculated using contracted hours or average weekly hours as previoulsy outlined. However, it is possible that some GPs may work longer hours than those recorded within the wMDS.
Working hours information is a snapshot taken at 30 September 2017. A GP’s working pattern could have changed in the course of the financial year and therefore the hours worked during that quarter may not reflect the contracted or average hours worked during the rest of the financial year.
Any hours that a GP is contracted to work outside their practice will not be included in their working hours information in the wMDS. This could include private work, work in walk in centres, or as a locum at a different practice. However, their income from these sources would be included in the amounts reported in their Self-Assessment tax return and so in some cases, a GP’s weekly working hours may not reflect all the work they have been paid for.
Within the wMDS, women make up 53.1 per cent of the GP population but a far higher proportion of the part-time workforce.
As shown in Table 3.1, 73 per cent of all (combined) GPs who work fewer than 22.5 hours a week are female. In contrast, female GPs account for only 28.1 per cent of those who work 37.5 hours or more a week.
Table 3.1: Percentage of GPs that are female, by GP type and working hours band, 2017/18
| Weekly hours band |
Combined |
Contractor |
Salaried |
|
<22.5
|
73.0 |
63.9 |
79.8 |
|
22.5 up to 37.5
|
58.3 |
51.0 |
72.7 |
|
>=37.5
|
28.1 |
25.1 |
47.1 |
Table 3.2: Percentage of GPs that are female, by GP type and age band, 2017/18
| Age band |
Combined |
Contractor |
Salaried |
| Under 40 |
64.4 |
48.2 |
75.1 |
| 40 to 49 |
56.8 |
48.7 |
75.8 |
| 50 to 59 |
45.6 |
41.3 |
67.3 |
| 60 and over |
27.0 |
24.9 |
38.9 |
Note: Earnings and Expenses Estimates by age band and weekly working hours are available in the accompanying Excel Annex 1, available under Resources on the Overview page.
Data from the General Practice Workforce publications, which uses the wMDS as its source, suggests the profile of the GP workforce is changing as an increasing proportion of GPs are female. While women outnumber men in terms of headcount, a greater percentage of female GPs work part time.
The three weekly working hours bands used for this report were designed to avoid the likelihood of earnings and expenses estimates being suppressed due to small sample sizes, after HMRC has matched GPs to their Self-Assessment tax returns.
However, it is possible to use narrower bands when looking only at GPs’ weekly working hours from wMDS data.
Figure 3.1 shows the split of male and female GPs from the wMDS at 30 September 2017 within weekly working hours bands of 7.5 hours. The figure shows that in general the greater proportion of GPs working shorter hours is female.
Within the two sub-divisions of the 22.5 to fewer than 37.5 analysis band in particular, it can be seen that females tend to be distributed towards the lower subdivision (22.5 to under 30 hours). This should be considered when interpreting earnings and expenses estimates, as the greater distribution of females in the lower subdivision could have the effect of pulling down average earnings of female GPs within the wider 22.5 to under 37.5 hours band, when compared to results for male GPs.
See Annex A for counts of GPs from the England report population by weekly working hours band and gender.