The highly spoken about subject of late has been the gender pay gap within various industry sectors.  Both public and private sectors have been put under the microscope with the private sector revealing a much higher gender pay gap.

Under new regulations, the government require employers to publish:

• Their mean and median gender pay gap figures;
• Their bonus pay gap, and the proportion of men and women receiving bonuses;
• The proportion of men and women in each pay quartile; and
• A written statement on their website.

 

Following on from these reports being published, the gender pay gap across different industries has been released.  Disappointingly, the gender pay gap within the tech  sector is one of highest.

We know that there are significantly fewer women in tech than men and that is a topic for a blog for another day! But, what about those women who have made it their career choice?  Those who have an interest and followed a path into the world of IT?

On average, the gap between Men and Women’s pay is a difference of 18%, however, in the Tech sector, it is significantly higher at 25%!

If you work for a smaller company, that number goes up even more, to a whopping 30% pay difference.  That’s not all, even though reports have shown that women are just as likely to be described as high performers, when it comes to being paid your bonus, women are paid 20% less.

A look at the difference with average base salaries within different size companies:

 

Gender Pay Gap by Level

The gap within pay does depend on the role you are working in.  When looking at the different areas, Executive, Management, Professional and Support, it shows that women tend to work more within the support area.  For those females who are in these support type roles, and for those that have made it into the highly male dominate Executive position, the pay gap is less.

In support, the average gap between male and female workers would be – £21,544 (women) to £22,000 (men) – just a 2% pay gap.

Within the Executive level, where a tiny minority are female, the average pay difference was £177,912 (women) to £193,703 (men) a slightly higher gap of 8%

The biggest difference can be seen in the Professional and Managerial roles where men in Management earn £80,000 compared to £69,972 for women – a 13% pay difference and Professional women earn £40,938 whilst men earn £50,600, a 19% differnce

 

Gender Pay Gap and Proportion of Females within Specific Roles

When we look at figures in reports even more closely, we can break the analysis down further by looking at specific roles.  It’s clear to see from reports that there are fewer women in more of the hands on technical roles, and they have more presence when it comes to the more customer facing and business focused roles.  Both Data Scientist and Software developer roles see as few as 1 in 10 employers being female.  Again, that goes back to seeing fewer girls taking STEM subjects in school, college and further on in University, how we address this is also a blog for another day.

It is quite clear from reports from companies from all different industry sectors that the Gender pay gap is very apparent. What needs to be done to address this and where do we start?

At present the call for business with more than 250 employees must present these reports to show transparency. However, as there are so many Digital start ups that have fewer than that, there must be more transparency within these smaller companies.

For companies having to now report on their organisation, the government have developed an on-line tool  Close Your Pay Gap  to assist them.  This resource enables employers to:

• Generate their pay gap information;
• Identify priority areas for their organisation by answering a short series of questions; and
• Receive a bespoke report and action plan for addressing the pay gap in their organisation.

 

Private sector organisations are now becoming increasingly more aware of the benefits to their business of a diverse workforce. Businesses whose workforces mirror their customer base can respond more quickly with products and services their customers want and need.

What Next?

The world of Technology is trail blazing and fast moving and with one of the biggest gender pay gaps, surely their forward-thinking ways should be echoed in their practices and salaries.

Tech companies may well address this as pressure mounts and the focus turns onto them.

We have seen the Financial Sector address its failings, so now, maybe it’s time our glorious Tech Sector do the same.