[DanaC]

From the Guardian:

The data shows that the median annual salary for all full-time employees in 2010 was £25,900, which is up 0.3% on the year before. But men earn vastly more than women: £28,091, compared to £22,490 - a difference of 19.9%.

Even overtime has an effect - 24.1% of men working full-time take home overtime pay, compared to only 12% of women in the same position.

But even if you remove that impact, plus the effect of women earning maternity pay and the fact that more women work part-time than men, the difference is still striking: men earned 10.2% more in hourly full-time pay last year, £13.01 compared to £11.68.

The pay gap has narrowed considerably in the past decade, declining from 16.3% (excluding overtime) in 2000 to 10.2% last year

The ONS recommends looking at median salaries because they are not affected by the relatively few very high earners - unlike the 'average' or 'mean' salary, which would be changed by one or two people earning over £1m, for instance. If you do use the average figure, the pay gap rises to 15.5%.

And before we start wondering if we're really comparing like with like:

Using the ONS' job classification data, where each occupation is given a special 4-digit code number, the data shows there are around 170 jobs classified where men earn over 10% more than their female counterparts, and another 200 where men earn between 1 and 10% more than women. There are only three where the hourly pay is the same.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datab...ns-day-pay-gap