U.K. Gender Pay Gap Revealed: Men Outearn Women at Every Level

(Bloomberg) -- The latest U.K. pay gap data reveal just how unequal earnings are between men and women.

For full-time employees, men were paid more than women across the board last year, the Office for National Statistics said in a report published Wednesday. At almost 25 percent, the gap is largest in skilled trades -- the most male-dominated of all the occupations. The smallest difference is in sales and customer service, where the workforce is almost evenly split between the genders.

The question of equal pay is under the spotlight as U.K. firms near an April deadline to comply with a new law that forces them to publicly state the wage differential between their male and female staff. While fewer than 600 of the 9,000 companies required to report have done so, high profile cases of disparity -- such as among staff at public broadcaster the BBC -- have already drawn criticism from politicians and public alike.

The ONS data show men dominate the higher-paying occupations, accounting for 72.8 percent of chief executive officers and senior officials and 70.2 percent of managers and directors. They also hold a high proportion of the lowest-paying elementary occupations, and process plant and machine operatives roles, the preliminary data for 2017 shows.

Overall the report found that the gender pay gap for full-time workers remains small at younger ages, but widens from the age of 40 to peak between the ages 50 to 59. Women’s wages stopped growing at a younger age, it said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Lucy Meakin in London at lmeakin1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Gordon at pgordon6@bloomberg.net, Andrew Atkinson, Brian Swint

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