With eight out of ten firms still paying their male employees more than women, little progress has been made in closing the gender pay gap in the UK. Some sectors have shown some improvement since 2017/18 when companies were first required to publish figures. The latest figures show that organizations in the public sector reduced their pay gap from 14.5% in favor of men in 2017 to 8.9% in 2022. Meanwhile, in other sectors like education and health, the pay gap between men and women has increased. Use the lookup table below to find what the gender pay gap is where you work.
About the data
Median pay gap
We’re showing you the median gender pay gap, which is the difference between how much the middle-ranking man and middle-ranking woman earn. In other words, if you line up all male and female employees in two lines by their hourly earnings, the median gender pay gap will be the difference between how much the man and the woman in the middle of those lines earn. A gender pay gap of 9.4%, which is the national average, means that the average woman at a company earns 91.6p for each £1 earned by the average man.
Pay gap v unequal pay
The median gender pay reflects differences in how much men and women are paid in an organisation regardless of their job titles. A high gender pay gap can be caused by different factors, such as women occupying fewer highly paid roles than men, the number of female employees or traditional career roles. This is different to unequal pay – paying women less for the same work – which is illegal. You can see what the gender split of employees at different pay levels is on the government’s website.
What employers are included?
All employers with 250 or more employees in England, Wales and Scotland – that includes companies, charities and public sector departments – must report their gender pay gap figures by the end of each financial year. These figures are calculated based on a “snapshot date”, usually at the beginning of the financial year. For most employers, the latest snapshot date is 5 April 2022.
