The finance and insurance industry in the United Kingdom has traditionally been among the poorest-performing sectors in terms of the gender pay gap. This is evident in the fact that the gender pay gap in this sector was
in 2023. In April 2017, new legislation was mandated that meant all companies operating in the United Kingdom with 250 or more employees had to provide specific data in a bid for transparency regarding the gender pay gap in their respective organizations. The objective of this new regulation was not only to push larger companies towards gender equality, but perhaps to incentivize specific organizations to
. In no sector is the need for positive and equal change more prevalent than in finance, which has the largest median gender pay gap of any sector.
Gender inequality in the UK financial services industry
The financial services industry employs approximately 467,000
full- and part-time female workers, compared to around 584,000 men. However, the most significant gender disparity in employment is in the type of employment: a considerably larger number of females than males work part-time. In 2023, the
mean weekly gross earnings of women in the financial and insurance industry was just hardly over 70 percent of those of their male counterparts. The figures of
pay differences between men and women within the industry clearly indicate that there is ample room for improvement, especially for
women employed at some of the larger UK banks.
Gender pay gap reporting of the largest banks
Large banks in the United Kingdom are required by law to publish their median and mean gender pay gaps, the proportion of
men and women in each quartile of the pay structure, as well as pay gaps in any bonuses paid out during the year in question. Both in terms of median and mean pay gaps,
HSBC performed the worst among the leading UK banks in 2023. The gender pay gap is not to be confused with equal pay, but instead looks at all roles at all levels of an organization, rather than comparing pay received by men and women for the same role.
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