"Shell reveals gender pay gap of 22%", 30 Nov 2017

Oil giant Shell says male staff working for the company on average earn 22% more than women in the UK…[D]espite this, it is confident it pays equally for equal work...

...The [UK] government now requires bodies with more than 250 employees to publish gender pay gap figures every year….The median UK gender pay gap was 9.1% for the year to April for full-time workers, according to the Office for National Statistics.

...Shell UK's chairman, Sinead Lynch, said the two main reasons for the gender pay gap were "fewer women in senior leadership positions, and fewer women working in technical or trading roles that attract higher levels of pay"...Shell, which is the largest firm on the UK's FTSE 100 index, says it struggles to attract as many women as men into technical roles which typically pay more...The percentage of women in senior management roles had risen from 12% to 27% between 2005 and 2017, the firm [also] said…

A traditional skills imbalance was the argument used by the Bank of England, when it revealed...its male staff were paid almost a quarter more than female employees...Large UK companies have until April next year to publish their gender pay gaps, but the vast majority are yet to report them...