Ever since April 2018 the government has mandated a requirement for all UK firms with more than 250 staff to publish annual figures showing the pay gap between their male and female employees. And so, every year since – with the government making an exception in 2020 due to the covid-19 pandemic – construction firms of a certain size have published these figures on their own website and a government site.

The findings over the four years have shown that most construction companies pay women on average less than men, with the government’s gender pay gap data showing that men get promoted to senior, higher-paying construction roles, whereas women are grouped into admin and support roles that are lower paid.

But as today’s deadline for the latest data looms, it seems appropriate to pause to ask how much of a difference all this reporting is actually making to gender equality in construction and are there more effective ways to narrow the pay gaps between men and women?

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