With the recent controversy hitting the headlines related to the gender pay gap in high-profile industries by some of the world’s biggest organisations, it has now been revealed that women in graphic and web design industries also get paid less than men – to the tune of £4,000 a year.
Hourly Earnings
Referring to the pay received by men and women on an hourly basis, the gender pay gap is different from equal pay, which refers to men and women legally receiving the same pay for the same job. When looking at wages paid on an annual basis rather than an hourly rate, the differences really become apparent.
In the graphic and web design sectors, women earn 2.1% less than men on average, with women taking away approximately £26,000 a year against the £31,000 typically brought home by men performing the same role. This is typical throughout the country, not just in main UK towns, including web design in Yorkshire.
Reasons
One of the main reasons for this is that women are more likely to be homemakers alongside their career, meaning that they often work reduced hours. Other reasons might include women not having the same accessibility to climb the career ladder as men do because they took maternity leave or time off work to care for sick family members. This may seriously hamper women’s abilities to land those most senior positions.
Design Industry
The design industry employs a significantly higher number of men than women and appears to play an instrumental part in women who do join the sector receiving a lower annual wage. With hundreds of top-quality web design companies to choose from, including https://www.etempa.co.uk/, it’s imperative that this imbalance is addressed in order to keep talented and creative women in this sector.
In The Future
It has now become a legal requirement for companies, public sector bodies and charities employing more than 250 employees to submit gender pay figures on an annual basis; the first wave of figures came through in April 2018.
The call to address the huge gap in pay between men and women and correct it is being heard across the world. With some of the world’s major employers also guilty of paying men more than women, no one will be exempt from scrutiny.
