OVER THREE-QUARTERS of UK firms have reported a gap in how men and women are paid.
All UK companies with over 250 employees were required by the government to report details of the gap between the median hourly rate paid to male and female staff before midnight last night.
A publicly searchable database is available on the UK government’s website here.
The median rate is the level of pay that separates the top earners from the lower half.
So the gender gap would be determined by taking the median of all the female employees in a company and the male employees and then comparing them.
In total, over 10,000 companies published data on pay.
A total of 78% showed a pay gap in favor of men, while 14% favored women and 8% had no gap.
Prime Minister Theresa May has said that the pay gap was one of “the burning injustices which mar our society”.
Analysis by The BBC shows that a gender pay gap can arise from a number of factors.
These include if there are more higher paid men than women in a company, if women are deemed to be less experienced or if women take a salary hit after going on maternity leave.
A large number of the companies that reported figures (about 1,000) did so just yesterday.
The biggest gap for a well-known UK company was found at lingerie group Boux Avenue which found that women earned on average 75.7% less than men on a median basis.
According to The Guardian, the gap reflects the fact that the vast majority of the sale staff are female shop workers – who may be paid less than a certain number of men in head office roles.
Ryanair had the most significant pay gap of any airline – at 72%, with the majority of its UK staff either pilots or cabin crew. Just eight of the airline’s 554 Uk-based pilots are female.
Other companies that reported significant pay gaps include:
Meanwhile, a number of companies reported what are called negative pay gaps, where women earned more on average than men.
These included Tesla Motors and baby clothes Mamas and Papas.
With reporting from AP
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