Shell UK revealed that male staff working for the company earn 22% more than women on average.
The oil giant said that the pay gap does not exist because of sexual discrimination, but rather due to a difference in skills between the two genders – with men taking on different roles than women in the company.
Shell said that the reason the for the gap is that there are fewer women in senior leadership positions, as well as fewer women with technical or trading jobs that typically offer higher levels of pay.
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the median UK gender pay gap was 9.1% for full-time workers in the year to April 2017.
Since 1997, when the ONS began collecting figures on the gender pay gap, the difference between male and female pay has almost halved.
Commenting on the report, Shell UK Country Chair, Sinead Lynch said, “Equal Pay ensures men and women are paid equally for work of equal value. Through our robust and non-discriminatory pay processes, we are confident we have equal pay, however, we do have a gender pay gap. Across all our employees in the UK, that pay gap is 22.2%. This means our average hourly rate for all our female employees is 22.2% lower than the average hourly rate for all our male employees.”
Shell UK says it is committed to improving gender balance “across all our businesses”.
Ronan Cassidy, Chief HR and Corporate Officer said, “The publication of the UK data provides a good opportunity to take stock, and a good reminder of why it is important to maintain the momentum of efforts internally and externally and keep focus on the issue.”
“Our drive to gender balance started years ago. Are we where we aspire to be? No. But we should recognise the significant progress we have made, especially the marked change in gender balance at recruitment and the increase in senior leadership representation, and draw confidence from that for the future in driving gender representation towards critical mass.
“The Executive Committee and I remain passionately committed to improving gender balance across all our businesses.”
