Over 90% of UK universities with pay gap in favour of male employees

More than 90% of universities pay the average male employee more than the average female employee, an annual collection of gender pay gap data has revealed.

Individual companies are required by the Equality Act 2010 Regulations 2017 to submit the data to the Government Equalities Office. Public sector organisations draw their data from 31 March onwards, which is the “snapshot date”.

The BBC compiled data of hourly “median pay gaps” – which are defined as “the difference[s] in pay between the middle-ranking woman and the middle-ranking man” – into a calculator.

For last year, the average median pay gap for UK universities is 13.7%, which is 1.6% less than that in 2017, and 4.6% more than the 2018 national average.

Harper Adams University has the widest pay gap at 33.7%, followed by the Royal Veterinary College, New College Durham, and Teesside University. Durham University has the widest pay gap out of the Russell Group universities.

The bonus gender pay gap which shows the difference in the bonus amount paid to men and women was highest at the University of Liverpool, which was 87.6%. Newcastle University followed with 80%.

Warwick SU’s gender pay gap has increased by 1.4% since last year

At the University of Warwick, gender pay gap figures are released on 4 April due to an alternate snapshot date. Warwick’s gender pay gap has been the second worst amongst Russell Group universities in 2018  and 2016.

For Warwick’s Students’ Union (SU), there exists “a pay gap of 7% in favour of men”, which means that the average female employee earns £9.30 for every £10 the average male employee earns.

Warwick SU’s gender pay gap has increased by 1.4% since last year. This figure for 2019 is lower than the 9.1% average of all companies, and higher than the service sector average by 1%.

Commenting on the figures released by the Government Equalities Office, the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) stated that a “marked narrowing of the gap over the past decade” is evident, and that they had worked on it “over many years”.

The UCEA explained: “All HE (Higher Education) institutions have been supportive of this and have focused their own work to develop a better understanding of practice and trends…and to explore effective interventions and actions to try to close the gender pay gap.”