The UK government has announced that it is to push ahead with plans to force firms with more than 250 employees to disclose information on pay gaps between men and women.
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.
Despite this, The Engineer Salary Survey nevertheless suggests one of the key reasons for the apparent disparity between men’s and women’s salaries is the higher proportion of men in senior positions and the relatively low proportion of female engineers in the 50 plus age bracket.
And whilst the latest initiative is to be welcomed, it seems likely that concerted action on ensuring that women enjoy the same opportunities for career progression as men will ultimately have the biggest impact on addressing any apparent gender pay disparity. ”Addressing the gender pay gap is the right priority,” commented Katja Hall, CBI deputy director-general, “To see real progress, however, we need to challenge occupational stereotypes by encouraging more women into male dominated industries and investing in careers advice.”
Click here to access The Engineer Salary Survey 2015
And click here to access our online salary-benchmarking tool and find out whether you’re over or underpaid.
I’m never quite sure I believe these statistics. Otherwise why don’t the business leaders simply just employ women to increase their profits with very little work and no investment?
I am not the first to note this: we always seem to get ‘better’ social policies from Tories than from the others?
can this be right? (should that be left?)
Mike B
Whilst gender pay equality should be a given, I think the bigger “elephant in the room”, is the “total package” pay multiple, between the top executives & the lowest paid workers – now if that was legally capped at let’s say *75 or *100, to avoid reducing their own package, that would force the executives to invest to increase productivity (& thence pay) of the lowest paid workers. This would, indirectly, increase women’s average pay, because unfortunately a disproportionate percentage of the lower paid employees are female.
There is a lot of female talent, git it a chance
Longer ago than I care to recall, I was persuaded to go on a fly-fishing course: the leader was one Colonel Drury: who held the then Guinness ‘record’ for casting off the roof of the Savoy Hotel into the River Thames. If he was at a function, dinner, event and the conversation was flagging he would say”I’ve always believed it was a mistake to educate women!” -knowing that he could enjoy his brandy and cigar in peace: whilst everyong else took up the argument and did all the talking.
I immediately point out that I do NOT subscribe to this!
Interestingly, the equations which define the motion of a fishing fly and its line are similar tothose which define ‘crack’ of a whip, and the ‘flow’ of a flag in the wind. And needless to say, certain textile processes are similarly defined:
I believe they happily reduce the salaries and wages to match all of them.
Why waste time comparing two groups of like minded people who contribute to the bottom line?
Why not compare Engineers to accountants and HR people now that’s a report I’d read….