Latest figures reveal almost unchanged gender pay gap

The state of the gender pay gap and questions of how to deal with it have been in the headlines recently. Now new data from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) shows slight improvement, but little overall change over a four-year period.

Big 4 firm PwC has joined the discussion by commenting on the core issues.

Little change

The new ONS figures revealed that the gap between men and women’s pay in full-time roles dropped to 9.4% in April this year, as opposed to 9.6% in 2014.

The good news is that the figure is the lowest recorded since the survey started in 1997, but the last four years have seen relatively little change. When figures for full-time and part-time employees are combined, the gap is actually unchanged from 2014 at 19.2%.

Faster progress

Head of people at PwC, Gaenor Bagley, commented on the situation.

“The Government’s plans to require large companies to report their gender pay gap analysis is creating great momentum for change and is encouraging businesses to think about this issue. But if we want to see faster progress on closing the gender pay gap, companies simply publishing their gender pay figures is not enough – they need to look behind the figures to understand why there are differences. It is only by understanding the root causes that companies can start to take action," she said

She called on companies to publicly issue more detailed information on pay grade differences, as well as inform the public on what actions they are taking to address gender inequality.