The recent National Management Salary Survey, published recently told us something we already suspected.
Drawing from more than 68,000 British professionals and comparing data from individuals on similar levels of management within the workplace the report shows that more than 40 years after the Equal Pay Act, female bosses are still earning only three-quarters as much as their male colleagues.
Whats more, salary discrepancies widen at the higher echelons of management, with a "midlife pay crisis" particularly hitting female managers aged over 40, who earn 35% less than men. The average pay gap between men and women aged between 46 and 60 stands at £16,680 a year, while among company directors men take home £21,084 more than their female colleagues.
Ann Francke, chief executive of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), said: "This is all about apathy and ignorance. Companies think it is not a problem for them, so they don't do anything about it. Every company needs to conduct its own survey. It is pretty obvious a lot of the FTSE 350 are paying their female managers less than men for the data to turn out like this.'
Francke added that the likes of the supermarket chain Tesco, which publishes data on its gender pay gap is a rare example of an organisation attempting to address the problem. Tesco says its pay gap stands at 1% compared with the national average of 10%, although those figures apply to the whole workforce.
Including male and female managers of all ages, the CMI said that the pay gap stands at £9,069, with men getting an average salary of £39,461 where women get £30,392.
Few cases over equal pay have ever been brought to court, although two years ago the Supreme Court did allow 174 mainly female former Birmingham city council workers to press ahead with compensation claims over missed bonuses – a judgement that has cost the council around £1bn to settle equal pay claims.
