Companies have until April 2018 to publish their gender pay gap. The regulations will cover approximately 9,000 employers with over 15 million employees, representing nearly half of the UK’s workforce.

In no other industry is there such a gulf in wages as among construction & building trades supervisors, where women are paid 45.4% lessthan women.  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 pay their women 9.0% less than their men while chartered surveyors have a gender pay gap of just 0.9% in favour of men

The government hopes that shining a light on the disparity between what men are paid and what women are paid will result in a reduction of the disparity.

Minister for women and equalities Justine Greening said: “We have more women in work, more women-led businesses than ever before and the highest proportion of women on the boards of our biggest companies. This has helped us to narrow the gender pay gap to a record 18.1% – but we want to eliminate it completely.

“Helping women to reach their full potential isn’t only the right thing to do, it makes good economic sense and is good for British business. I am proud that the UK is championing gender equality and now those employers that are leading the way will clearly stand out with these requirements.”

As part of the new regulations, employers will be required to publish their median and mean gender pay gap figures, publish the proportion of men and women in each quartile of the pay structure and publish the gender pay gaps for any bonuses paid out during the year.

Employers will also be encouraged to publish an action plan alongside their figures, demonstrating the steps they will take to close the gender pay gap within their organisation.

Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, 2016, UK

(Source: Office for National Statistics)

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