Female finance workers still paid over a fifth less

WOMEN in finance are still paid more than a fifth less than their male counterparts raising fears that men will be the main beneficiaries of the lifting of bonus caps in the City, a new survey reveals today.

- Simon Hunt

The study was commissioned by spend management platform Spendesk and based on a survey of 750 senior level finance professionals in the UK, US, France and Germany. It found that women in the finance industry in the UK earn 22% less than men on average, a narrowing of only one percentage point compared with last year, according to Spendesk in its annual Salary Benchmark Report.

In the US, which does not have EU-style bonus cap restrictions, the pay gap was even higher at 26%, in signs that lifting the cap could cause the pay gap to widen in the UK.

The Spendesk study found that women working in finance in the UK on average earned £89,330, 22% lower than the £114,053 average for their male counterparts.