Fewer Women Among UK's Top Earners in Finance Post Covid

On 27 May, 2024, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) has revealed facts about women making a smaller proportion of top earners in United Kingdom’s financial and professional services as compared to before COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the research, only 19.4% is made by women out of the sector’s top 1% of earners on average. This was recorded between the first quarter of 2020 and the second quarter of 2023 which came down from 19.7% in the last 3 years up to the first quarter of 2020.

LSE’s associate professor, Grace Lordan stated, “The lack of progression of women to the most senior roles in financial and professional services is a major factor contributing to the gender pay gap. We are going backwards but I am not surprised. For progress to be made, there needs to be a bigger shift towards recognising that diversity is good for business.”

As per 21 companies’ salary data, women get paid 28.85% less on average in some of the top financial firms in UK in comparison to their male counterparts. This was reviewed by Reuters on the month of April, 2024.

Yet, women made up 28.3% of the top earners’ 10% in 2020’s 1st quarter and 2023’s 2nd quarter, as per LSE research. The research was based on the government’s quarterly Labour Force Survey that shows a rise of 2.5% from the 3-year period up to the first quarter of 2020.