After the reporting deadline, the largest UK pay gaps revealed

Almost eight in 10 companies and public-sector bodies in the UK pay men more than women it was revealed, as the deadline passed for businesses to report their gender pay gap. The Guardian reports that some eight years after the law was tabled to compel companies across the UK to reveal the extent of the difference between male and female wages, the data showed that women were being paid a median hourly rate that, on average, was 9.7% less than that given their male colleagues. The sectors with the largest gender pay gaps were facing difficult questions as the deadline closed, with construction, finance and insurance, and education, exposed as the industries with the largest gaps.

The gender pay gap has been the subject of both comment and controversy in recent weeks, but, People Management reports, for a notable minority of employers, the prevailing narrative – that women take home less than men because they are missing out on all-important progression opportunities – is very different. Just under 14% of organisations reported paying women a higher average hourly median rate than men. The full list includes nurseries, hospices and local authorities. Most are either managed primarily by women or have relatively few male employees. And, the report says, for some, the challenge now their figures have been made public is how to attract or promote enough men to address the gap – or deciding whether paying women more on average represents a problem in the first place.