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Construction gender pay gap exposed

9 Dec 16 The full extent of the gap between the amount paid to construction industry women and construction industry men is revealed in a new online tool.

Construction & building trades supervisors have the highest gender pay gap in favour of men, with men paid 45.4% more than women. In no other industry is there such a gulf in wages.

In all construction and building trades, women are paid 23.3% less than men.

Female construction operatives are paid 15.3% less than male construction operatives.

Among the professional classes it is a different picture. Female construction project managers are only 3.2% below their male colleagues, while female civil engineers are actually paid 2.8% more than male civil engineers.

Architects, by comparison, are made to look positively Neanderthal, paying their women 9.0% less than their men.

Only chartered surveyors, it seems, manage to get close to equality, with a pay gender gap of just 0.9% in favour of men.

The statistics are revealed in an online tool created by the government and the Office for National Statistics. Its arrival coincides with a new requirement for any company with 250+ employees to report their gender pay and gender bonus pay gaps from April 2017. The regulations, which will affect almost 8,000 employers with around 11 million employees, will shine a light on workplace practices that could be preventing women from reaching the top in their organisations.

The new regulations, to be debated in Parliament, set out the proposed requirements for employers in the private and voluntary sectors to:

  • publish their median gender pay gap figures
  • publish their mean gender pay gap figures
  • publish the proportion of men & women in each quartile of the pay structure
  • publish the gender pay gaps for any bonuses paid out during the year.

Minister for women and equalities Justine Greening said: “Britain has the lowest gender pay gap on record, there are more women in work than ever before, more women-led businesses than ever before and there are now women on every board in the FTSE 100.

“But if we are to help women to reach their potential and eliminate the gender pay gap, we need to shine a light on our workplaces to see where there is more to do to. This tool will empower both men and women to challenge this issue in their profession and help people to make more informed decisions about their career.

“Employers must play their part in this too and take action to tackle the gender pay gap in their organisation. That’s why we are requiring large employers to publish their gender pay and gender bonus pay gaps for the first time ever and our regulations mean they can start getting ready to report from April next year.” 

The online tool uses the latest data from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings to provide the most up to date gender pay gap data. The gender pay gap is now at a record low of 18.1% overall, ONS says.
 

Gender Pay Gap (GPG) by occupation all employees

   

Occupations with the largest GPG in favour of men

Occupations where average pay is most similar for men and women (i.e. GPG is closest to 0%)

Occupations with the largest GPG in favour of women

Construction & building trades supervisors 45.4%

Waiters & waitresses 0.0%

Midwives -61.8%

Financial managers & directors 36.5%

Bar staff 0.0%

Probation officers -25.3%

Printers 35.1%

Fishmongers & poultry dressers -0.0%

Fitness instructors -22.9%

Financial institution managers & directors 34.1%

Nurses 0.0%

Childminders & related occupations -20.5%

Assemblers (vehicles & metal goods) 33.5%

Podiatrists -0.1%

Parking & civil enforcement occupations -18.7%

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