Around eight in 10 employers pay men more than women on average, according to analysis of gender pay gap data for 2022.
As the gender pay gap reporting deadline passed on 4 April, more than 10,000 employers with 250 or more employees published their pay gap data, taken from the annual snapshot date of 5 April 2022.
Analysis of gender pay gap data by Personnel Today found that the median hourly pay gap between male and female employees was 12.1% in favour of men, barely changed from the previous year (12.2%), and a slight increase on the 11.9% seen in 2017.
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The median bonus gap in 2022 was 6.6%, a significant reduction from the 28.2% seen in 2021.
Suki Sandhu, CEO and founder of EDI consultancy INvolve, said organisations needed to set ambitious targets to close their pay gaps.
“These findings also ask if business leaders are actively invested in and are driving DEI strategies beyond corporate pledges and platitudes. We know that to drive real change, gender equality in business must be prioritised and without implementing comprehensive action plans progress will stall, or in this case, move backwards, which would be disastrous for businesses, society and the economy,” he said.
“Leaders must invest in DEI as they would sales, marketing and operations functions as any other attitude will simply not move the needle fast enough. “
Research from the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) showed that only 17% of managers felt their organisation was using its gender pay gap data to take action.
The survey of 1,083 managers found that nearly two-thirds agreed that organisations benefit from pay gap reporting, but only a quarter stated that they were aware that their organisation collects gender pay gap data and just 23% publish it externally.
We need to address the reasons why occupational segregation persists, how this feeds into entrenching gender pay gaps, and take action to prevent the advance of AI negatively impacting female employees.” – Dr Zara Nanu, Gapsquare
CMI chief executive Ann Francke said: “Organisations think and say they’re doing the right thing to advance gender equality in the workplace, but when it comes to taking action on the gender pay gap, evidence suggests they are failing to deliver.
“Our research continues to identify a significant say-do gap in UK workplaces, with managers failing to see their organisations take the appropriate action to create more inclusive workplaces for women and other groups.
“Encouraging transparent and honest conversations about pay is critical to tackling gender pay gaps. Employers need to take a closer, more thoughtful look at how they support their female colleagues and work hard to ensure pay is fair and practices are geared towards retaining them and helping them thrive.”
The lack of progress was “hugely disappointing”, said Dr Zara Nanu, CEO at pay analytics firm Gapsquare, part of XpertHR.
“Leaders know that these results come at a critical time given predictions from Goldman Sachs show that up to 300 million jobs could be replaced by technology such as AI. Roles set to be impacted are largely administrative (46%), which could adversely impact roles currently occupied by women, and in fact increase the gender pay gap further if these roles are fully replaced,” she said.
“Despite today’s results, I’m more optimistic than ever that we can indeed reach fair pay for all, and leaders can start to recognise how AI could impact on potential job losses – particularly for women. We need to address the reasons why occupational segregation persists, how this feeds into entrenching gender pay gaps, and take action to prevent the advance of AI negatively impacting female employees.”
Employers with largest gender pay gaps
Among the major employers with the largest gender pay gaps in 2022 were Ryanair, with a median hourly pay gap of 62.%, HSBC Bank (51.2%), and easyJet (47.3%).
Encouraging transparent and honest conversations about pay is critical to tackling gender pay gaps.” – Ann Francke, CMI
Ryanair and easyJet said their gender pay gaps could be attributed to a shortage of female pilots.
“Pilot hourly pay is high and female Pilots are paid exactly the same rates as their male colleagues. However, currently, only 4% of pilots are female,” Ryanair’s gender pay gap report said.
“Like all airlines, gender pay is materially affected by the relatively low proportion of female pilots in the industry. Although it is a global feature of the aviation industry that more males than females traditionally have chosen to enter the pilot profession, we continue to see a welcome increase in the number of female pilot applications and new recruits.”
easyJet’s report said: “We have more than doubled the number of female pilots flying with easyJet but we acknowledge that there is still work to do and so we continue to focus on this to create long-term, sustainable change. We will do this for the long term through activity like our Pilot School Visits Programme and in the shorter term by raising awareness and driving diversity through our recruitment campaigns and working with pilot training partners to attract more women to the career now.”
HSBC said that 51% of its UK employees are women, but nearly two-thirds are in junior roles.
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“We continue to have a significantly higher proportion of men in senior roles in Global Banking & Markets within HSBC Bank plc. HSBC UK employs significantly more women in junior and part-time roles in Wealth and Personal Banking. There are also several senior, global, head office roles held by men based in the UK,” its report said.
