The pay gap between men and women working in London has seen little change since 1997 with women in London earning 14.6% less per hour than men in 2017, despite legislation being introduced to improve this, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS)
In 1997 London had the narrowest gender pay gap in the UK but there has been little improvement since then, with other regions in the UK seeing more movement to pay equality over time.
Twenty years ago women working full-time in London earned 15.1% less per hour, on average, than their male counterparts. This has only slightly dropped in 2017 to 14.6%.
In Northern Ireland, women earn 3.4% more per hour than men, the only region in the UK where the pay gap has been in favour of women, and this has been the case since 2010.
The gap in Wales and Scotland has narrowed over the last 20 years, and now women earn 6.3% and 6.6% per hour less than men, respectively. In 1997, women earned 17.5% less than men in Wales, and 18.4% less in Scotland.
The region with the smallest gender pay gap is the south east where women earn 3.1% more per hour than men. This is down from women earning 9% more than men in 1997.
The gender pay gap has widened in the public sector. Women working part-time earned 6.1% per hour less than men in 1997, whereas in 2017 they earn 22.3% less.
Whereas in the private sector women working part-time earned 2.2% less than men in 1997 but the gap has now reversed with women now earning 2.6% more than men.
Gender pay gap per hour by region and country, 1997 and 2017, UK:
Region | Full-time 1997 | Full-time 2017 | Part-time 1997 | Part-time 2017 |
Northern Ireland | 16.5 | -3.4 | -0.1 | -10.4 |
Wales | 17.5 | 6.3 | -0.2 | -7 |
Scotland | 18.4 | 6.6 | 2.2 | -5.3 |
North West | 19.7 | 7.5 | 1.7 | -4.7 |
North East | 18.9 | 9.6 | 7.2 | -3.6 |
Yorkshire and The Humber | 17.6 | 9.7 | -2.1 | -4.1 |
England | 17.3 | 10 | 0.2 | -4.5 |
East | 17.7 | 11.4 | -2.8 | -5.2 |
South West | 21.3 | 11.4 | 2.4 | -3.7 |
West Midlands | 19.7 | 12.1 | 3.5 | -6.1 |
South East | 20.1 | 12.3 | -9 | -3.1 |
East Midlands | 20.7 | 13.6 | 4.9 | -4.7 |
London | 15.1 | 14.6 | -9 | -7.9 |
Under the new rules private, public and voluntary sector employers with 250 or more employees are required to publish their gender pay gap and bonus pay gap by April 2018. The regulations will cover approximately 9,000 employers with over 15m employees, representing nearly half of the UK’s workforce.
According to government figures, the UK’s national gender pay gap is currently 18.1%, the lowest since records began in 1997.
Report by Amy Austin
