Gapsquare Blog

Law firms have had an interesting few years following the beginning of the UK gender pay gap reporting legislation. 

It’s fair to say that the legislation has, more or less universally, exposed large pay gaps across firms and the wider sector. For the legal sector workforce, the gender pay gap is heavily impacted by the number of female legal secretaries paid a much lower salary than the fee-earning lawyers who have the ability to progress into partnership (at which point, they are then technically excluded from the legislation, due to no longer being considered an employee.) 

With Gapsquare, we can do it by 2034

The University and College Union announced last year that it was going to take forty years for the gender pay gap in UK higher education to close.

For academics, the gap stands at 12% and has been slowly decreasing in the last few years.

The UCU says that this equates to a shortfall of £6,103 per year for each female academic. In total, this £528 million per year. 

The gap is also larger at the so-called ‘elite’ Russell Group institutions at 16.3%. With less than six weeks to go before the gender pay gap reporting deadline, none of these institutions have reported.

In fact, less than 3% of universities have reported into the government portal - out of 109 universities in England, and 130 in the UK, only 3 have submitted: Leeds Art University, University of Salford and University of Kent. At the current pace of change, by the time I retire, the gender pay gap will still exist in academia.

The Gender Pay Gap:  My inspiration to close it and why Gapsquare is the company to get it done

Tomorrow, I’m spending my lunch break in my office with thirty 11-year olds. Not because we are diversifying our employment practices, but because they want to ask me an important question – What is it like working for Gapsquare? 

I’ve given it some thought, it’s a big question, but it sends me back to 2016 when my niece was born – suddenly, there was this innocent baby girl who had been born into a world where she will, statistically, earn less than if she had been born a boy. I knew that, for me with my work history so far in tackling inequality and driving forward change to pave a better world for all, my motivation had taken a tangible, gurgling human form.

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The new gender pay gap regulations provide an opportunity for change, are companies seizing them the right way?

Last week, the Financial Times reported that “1 in 20 companies who have submitted their gender pay gap data to the government have reported numbers that are statistically improbable and therefore almost certainly inaccurate.” One of these companies is fashion brand, Hugo Boss (who have since changed their numbers and now reporting a 32.6% mean and 76.5% median gender pay gap), a MacDonald’s franchise, an international car-parts manufacturer and a branch of national charity Age UK.

In some cases, the reports were most likely due to error, in fewer still probably because of plan to deceit, but mostly this happened because of misunderstanding of what the gender pay gap is.

Want to hear more about general UK trends in the gender pay gap? Click below:

Are you a public sector manager involved in reporting on the gender pay gap? Take advantage of this opportunity to hear unique and insightful perspectives on the pay gap from representatives of experienced Public Sector organisations, experts in employment law and HR and Gapsquare’s own Dr Zara Nanu.

DID YOU MISS THIS WEBINAR? WE HAVE MADE ALL THE CONTENT AVAILABLE TO YOU HERE: