High street banks disclose big gender pay gaps

Three of the UK’s biggest high street banks published gender pay gap figures this week, as more large companies continue to reveal the difference in average pay for men and women, in accordance with new legislation. As had been expected, the results were not pretty.

Barclays UK, which includes the bank’s high street and credit card operations, had a 14.2 per cent average pay gap between men and women in 2017. Barclays Group Service Company (operations and technology) had a salary gap of 29.9 per cent. Barclays International, which includes the company’s investment bank, as a gap of 43.5 per cent, excluding bonuses.

Lloyds Bank had a 42.7 per cent median pay gap if employees at its subsidiaries Cheltenham & Gloucester and HBoS were not included. With those employees included too, the gap was 32.8 per cent. RBS was the best performer of the three banks, in that its median gender gap across the company was 36.5 per cent.

A key reason for these large gaps in average pay is the fact that men hold a majority of the best-paid roles. Each of the banks stressed that it was seeking to address that disparity. Lloyds noted that in 2014 it had set a target to have 40 per cent of senior roles in the bank filled by women by 2020 and progress was being made towards this, was the percentage now 34 per cent, up from 29 per cent five years ago. RBS has set the same target: women currently fill about 37 per cent of senior roles within the bank.

The average gender pay gap in financial services was 34 per cent in 2017, according to PwC’s Women in Work Index.

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