Four out of five companies and organisations in Great Britain still pay their male employees more than female ones, according to Guardian analysis of the government’s gender pay gap reporting.
The median pay gap remains stubbornly wide at 9.4% – the same level as in 2017-18, when employers were first required to publish the information. About 10,000 companies and public bodies filed their gender pay gaps to the government’s reporting mechanism before this week’s deadline.
The gap remains larger in the public sector at 15.1%. This compares with 8% in the private sector, and both are broadly similar to last year’s figures.
In almost half of companies and public bodies male employees are paid at least 10% more than their female counterparts. This compares with only 3% where women are paid 10% more than men.
Only one in 10 pay female and male employees equivalent wages (where the difference is zero or less than 0.5% in either direction).
Campaigners have expressed frustration and disappointment at the lack of movement in the pay gap despite the reporting process, which was meant to help close it by ensuring all employers with 250 or more employees put this information into the public domain.
The Fawcett Society, which campaigns for gender equality, said it was disappointing that progress on closing the gap had all but stagnated. The UK is behind countries such as France, Belgium, and Sweden in making employers address gender pay gaps directly.
“If we are to see meaningful progress on closing the pervasive pay gap, employers must go further than data sharing,” it said. “We want this government to require every employer to create an action plan which sets out how they will improve gender equality in their workplace. Many do, but it is not yet widespread.”
The Trades Union Congress said it backed the introduction of mandatory action plans for larger employers, and for these to be extended to pay gaps related to ethnicity and disability.
“The gender pay gap is closing at a snail’s pace,” the TUC’s general secretary, Paul Nowak, said. “At current rates of progress, it will take more than 20 years to close it. That’s just not good enough. Ministers must step up, or we will consign yet another generation of women to lower pay.”
The construction, finance and insurance activities and education sectors reported the biggest median pay gap, with women earning between 21% and 23% less than their male colleagues, according to the analysis of more than 9,000 companies that provided information about their industrial sectors.
On the other side of the table, the health and social work sectors and accommodation and businesses registered the lowest pay gaps, with the median gender gap at 2% across those industries.
A government spokesperson said: “The government has taken significant action to support women at work. The chancellor recently announced a childcare revolution with 30 hours free childcare for children over the age of nine months. In December we announced that millions of employees will be able to request flexible working from day one, and earlier this month we launched recruitment for our programme to get Stem returners back into the workplace.
“We strongly urge organisations to take steps to ensure female employees reach their full potential.”
