The median gender pay gap at KPMG, when taking into account the data for equity partners’ pay, has risen to 28% in the past 12 months
EY’s reduced from 19.5% to 18.9% over the same period, while PwC’s is 18% and Deloitte’s 16%.
It is the second year of mandatory gender pay gap reports for UK businesses with over 250 employees.
For all of the Big Four firms the pay gap widens as the roles become more senior, and better paid.
Last year, there was outcry from the government and senior business leaders over the Big Four firms failing to include pay data for equity partners in their gender pay reports. That led to the firms releasing updated figures, and all four have done the same this year.
Including partner data has a significant effect on the overall figures. At Deloitte, for example, less than a fifth of partners are women. While its mean gender pay gap is 18.1%, the mean including equity partners is 41.1%.
KPMG is the only Big Four firm, when including partners, to see its median pay gap rise since March last year. The rest have fallen incrementally.
However, other data points show a mixed message: at PwC, the bonus gap is up 0.3%, and at Deloitte up 1.4%. At EY, the median pay gap between partners rose by 5.8% since last year.
The data refers to a snapshot of each firm published in early 2018. The effect of any measures that have been put in place since the first gender pay gap data was reported are likely to start showing up in the 2019 data, which will be reported next year.
Sourced from ICAEW written by Frances Ball