London is the UK region with the biggest gender pay gap on average for full-time employees, according to research by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Its analysis, which is based on adult rates of pay for employees aged between 18 and 49 whose pay for the survey’s pay period was not affected by absence, found that 20 years ago, women who worked full-time for more than 30 paid hours a week in London earned 15.1% less on average per hour than their male counterparts. For 2017, full-time women working in London earn 14.6% less than men.
In Wales, the gender pay gap on average is 6.3% an hour, while in Scotland it stands at 6.6% an hour in 2017. This compares to 17.5% and 18.4% respectively in 1997.
In comparison, women working full-time in Northern Ireland earn 3.4% more an hour, on average, than men.
The South East has the smallest gender pay gap, where women earn 3.1% more than men on average per hour in 2017. This compares to 1997 where women earned 9.0% more than men.
Full-time female employees who work in the private sector in 2017 earn 15.9% less an hour on average than full-time male employees. This compares to private sector full-time female employees in 1997 who were paid 23.8% less than male employees. Full-time female employees who work in the public sector have seen the gender pay gap reduce between 1997 and 2017, from 13.5% to 13.1% on average.
Women who work part-time, which is defined as less than 30 paid hours a week or less than 25 paid hours a week in the teaching sector, in the North East now earn 3.6% more than men on average, compared to 1997 when part-time female employees earned 7.2% less an hour on average than their male counterparts.
Women who work part-time in the public sector earn 22.3% less than men in the sector in 2017, compared to 1997 where women earned 6.1% less an hour than men.
For the private sector, women who work part-time in 2017 earn 2.6% more than men, compared to 1997, when they earned 2.2% less on average an hour.