Gender pay gap increases at major UK universities

Recent data shows that the majority of higher education institutions across the UK have failed to reach gender pay equity in the past year.

The gender pay gap, by definition, is a measure of equality that shows the difference in average earnings between women and men.

Since 2017, any organisation with more than 250 employees has been legally required to report its gender gap. Although unequal pay for men and women doing the same job has been illegal in the UK for 45 years, the gender pay gap still exists.

Healthy, thriving and inclusive universities are key to a functioning society; if women who work in these places are continually underpaid or overlooked for promotion, it won’t just impact those women, but the quality of the education provision and institutions more broadly.

Penny East

The Fawcett Society, a women’s rights organisation, has marked the 22 November as this years Equal Pay day, claiming that after this point women will essentially be working for free for the rest of the year. However, Times Higher Education reports that this date would be earlier by just examining higher education institutions, demonstrating a larger gender pay gap at UK universities.

Within this analysis, Times Higher Education looked into 120 institutions and found that over 60 percent failed to improve their median gender pay equity gap within the last 12 months. The opposite of this was true in 2024, when 59 per cent were able to narrow the gap.

The UK government’s official website suggests several possible causes for the national pay gap: high-paying sectors are often disproportionately made up of men; more women work part-time due to societal expectations to juggle both work and domestic duties; and women are still affected by the glass ceiling, meaning they are less likely to progress into senior roles than their male counterparts.

Penny East, Chief Executive of the Fawcett Society, told Times Higher Education that “Healthy, thriving and inclusive universities are key to a functioning society; if women who work in these places are continually underpaid or overlooked for promotion, it won’t just impact those women, but the quality of the education provision and institutions more broadly.”

She also urges universities to examine their policies and organisational culture, and spoke of how many women fear that protesting against these inequalities could affect their career.