To date most companies have been slow to release details of their gender pay gap with only 176 companies publishing their data.
With some 8,800 yet to reveal their figures, Theresa May has called for more companies to report on their gender pay gap to address the inequality in the workplace. She said that, "the gender pay gap isn't going to close on its own" and that "we all need to be taking sustained action to make sure we address this." Nevertheless, the only Government Department to have so far published their figures is the Department for Education which has a gap of 5.9%.
So far a handful of City businesses have published details of their gender pay gap and the results are as anticipated with reported median gaps of between 24% and 35.7%.
The Prime Minister's announcement comes in the wake of a report, published by the World Economic Forum, which showed that the UK has dropped from a ranking of 9th in the world to 15th in respect of its gender gap. This ranking comes after a study from the Chartered Management Institute which showed a 27% pay gap among the UK's 3.3 million managers, where men outnumber women three to one.
While the gender pay gap reporting obligations are an important step in the right direction, it seems that much work is still needed to reduce the gender pay imbalance in the UK.
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