BT says average female employee paid 7% less than male counterpart

CEO Gavin Patterson says there’s still work to do ‘to create a workforce that represents the society we work in and the customers we serve’

As of April last year, 29 per cent of BT’s senior management team were women (PA)

BT has become the latest company to publish its gender pay gap, admitting to paying its average female staff member 7 per cent less than its average male employee across the whole organisation.

The FTSE 100 listed firm said that its median gender pay gap is 5.2 per cent, below many of the corporations that have so far reported, in observance of an April deadline for all UK companies employing at least 250 people to disclose their data.

It said that its mean gender bonus pay gap is 29.2 per cent and its median gender bonus pay gap 11.2 per cent.

Chief executive Gavin Patterson said that the report shows that there’s still work to do “to create a workforce that represents the society we work in and the customers we serve”.

He said that BT’s gender pay gap is largely down to the demographics of the workforce.

“With our company roots firmly in engineering and technology, it is perhaps unsurprising that there are more men than women in the business,” he said.

“Having fewer women in engineering roles – which make up a large part of our workforce – is a nationwide challenge. But it’s one that we’re working to solve.”

He also committed to creating an environment “where more women progress through to the most senior levels” through several initiatives already launched by the company.

As of April last year, 29 per cent of BT’s senior management team were women. It has set itself a target of raising that proportion to 40 per cent by the end of 2020.

Around 9,000 companies have to publish their gender pay gap reports by 5 April. The vast majority of those that have already done so have admitted to a gap skewed significantly towards men.

Earlier this week research by professional services firm PwC showed that women across the UK would collectively be paid £90bn more every year if it weren’t for the gender pay gap.