Government to force employers to own up to gender pay gap

The new measures, which will be defined through a consultation process which kicks off this week, were proposed by the previous administration in response to Office of National Statistics figures showing that women working in the UK get paid on average 9.4 per cent less than men.

This pay gap is found to a greater and lesser degree throughout the economy, including in the manufacturing sector where, according to The Engineer’s 2015 Salary Survey women engineers earn on average 10 per cent less than their male colleagues.

Commenting on the government’s proposed initiative Tim Thomas, head of employment policy at EEF, the manufacturers’ organisation, warned against confusing a gender pay gap with equal pay, and stressed that gender pay reporting must be carried out in a balanced way.

However, our survey also revealed a pay gap between men and women at similar levels of seniority, with male junior engineers earning on average £3,000 more per year, and male senior engineers earning £45,458 on average compared to £39,332 for women.