Channel 4 has published its gender pay report and has revealed a gender pay gap of 28.6%.
The figure is calculated as a mean average of all female employees’ pay in comparison to a mean average of all male employees’ pay.
Channel 4 has a 59% female workforce over all but men make up 66% of its top 100 earners .
Channel 4 said the pay gap is skewed by a “higher proportion of men in senior positions, including in departments that attract higher average salaries overall, due to external market forces and the need to compete for talent. This factor accounts for close to half of our gender pay gap. We have nearly twice as many women as men in the two lower-earning quartiles. The high number of women in these lower quartiles pulls down the average female earnings overall and therefore increases our gender pay gap.”
Chief exec Alex Mahon said the 28.6% figure “obviously makes for uncomfortable reading and I am determined to take action to address it. There is no quick fix, but identifying the complex and multiple reasons behind our gap is the first step towards tackling the fundamental issues at play.
“While we employ significantly more women than men there is an imbalance in the ratios at the higher and lower-earning parts of the business. We have more men in higher-paid roles, and more women in lower-paid roles.
“We must reduce the gap by focusing on increasing the proportion of women in higher-paid roles. In this report, we are setting out the strategy to achieve that, with a goal of a 50:50 gender balance in the top 100 earners by 2023.”
She said though that the report found no evidence that men and women were paid unequally in similar jobs “However, that doesn’t mean we’re complacent, and we’re planning a number of steps to ensure that our approach to pay is always as fair and transparent as possible.”
Jon Creamer
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