Research published recently by the Royal Academy of Engineering (www.raeng.org.uk) indicates that the gender pay gap in engineering is smaller than the UK employee average.

The mean pay gap (10.8%) and the median pay gap (11.4%) for engineers in the sample analysed are around two thirds the national average.

Although the pay gap is less than feared, the report finds that closing it will take “concerted effort within the engineering profession”.

One ‘well-recognised issue’ that is contributing to the gender pay gap in engineering is the lack of women going into the profession; “and while attempts have been made to address this, pro-gress is disappointingly slow”.

The report — Closing the engineering gender pay gap — recommends actions that go beyond addressing this initial recruitment challenge to close the gender pay gap through addressing the retention of women and their progression to more-senior and higher-paid roles.

The actions it recommends as most effective include implementing transparent pay structures and grades, reviewing promotion criteria and introducing flexible working options for senior roles.

To compile the report — the first of its kind for the engineering profession — the Academy commissioned WISE to analyse the pay data of nearly 42,000 engineers working in the UK, to approximate the gender pay gap for the engineering profession.

This analysis, with data voluntarily provided by 25 engineering organisations of different sizes and from different sectors, excludes non-engineering roles to help identify issues and challenges specific to the profession (this approach differs from the mandatory gender pay gap reporting to government, which does not identify the professions of individuals in an organisation).

The report confirms that under-representation of women in senior roles — rather than unequal pay — is the single largest cause of the gender pay gap for engineers.

The factors that most contributed to pay variance for engineers in the sample included career level (40%), type of employer (12%), age (6%) and the annual revenue of the employer (5%). Just 9% of engineers in the top career grade in the sample were female, and women accounted for only 8% of those in the upper pay quartile.