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International Women’s Day: Finance Gender Pay Gap Widens by 1% in 2019

Published on: 3 Mar 2020

International Women's Day 2020

This Sunday 8th March is International Women's Day. This is a day which celebrates the achievements of women worldwide, whether they’re social, economic, cultural or political, and encourages the acceleration of gender equality.

The 2020 theme of International Women’s Day is ‘Each for Equal’ – promoting a view that an equal world is an enabled world, and that each one of us can collectively work together to create a society that is gender equal.

GAAPweb is one of the 350 firms signed up to the Women in Finance Charter, advocating for gender equality within the Accountancy and Finance profession. However, whilst we strive to champion equal rights for women, the findings in our recently published Audience Insight Report indicate that there is still a long way to go.

In a survey of over 3,000 Accountancy and Finance professionals conducted by GAAPweb in Autumn last year, 58% of respondents were male. Although this is a 6% increase in female participants since 2018, women are still underrepresented in the profession, particularly so in senior roles.  

Women occupy the majority of the lower-paying finance jobs whilst the percentage of men in senior positions including CFO (86%), Finance Director (75%) and FP&A Manager (73%) points to the continued trend of male dominance at a higher level.

Whilst 2018 saw the gender pay gap close by 1%, in 2019 the pay gap has once again widened to 26%, which is 9% higher than the UK national average. Men now earn an average of of £17,566 more than women per year, and there have been significant setbacks in certain job titles – with men in Corporate Finance / M&A roles taking home £25,549 more than their female peers compared to £10,764 more in 2018.

The survey revealed some year-on-year improvements regarding the pay gap for roles including Financial Controller (+3%), Finance Director (+4%) and Finance Manager (+1%), but there are still many steps which need to be taken to truly address gender imbalance in the Accountancy and Finance profession.

 

Last month, the GAAPweb team attended the ‘Women Rising’ conference in London, where three female CEOs of financial services businesses talked about both the accomplishments and the challenges they faced in their CEO positions. A key theme of the conference was the importance of networking and relationship building in helping to grow the confidence of women and help them to excel in senior finance roles.

Looking for your next networking opportunity? This year, we are exhibiting at Accountex at ExCeL on 13th – 14th May. This fantastic event is an ideal opportunity to meet the teams from global brands and cutting edge start-ups, network with peers and get the latest insights on how state of the art technology is shaping the profession.