£1,000 gender pay gap between graduates

A lot of column inches have been dedicated to the gender pay gap in top level jobs, but new research has found that this pay gap appears much sooner than originally thought.

The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) has found that three and a half years after graduating, the median salary of first degree male graduates working full-time is £1,000 higher than that of equivalent female graduates.

Furthermore, according to the largest every survey of graduates and their careers, a significantly higher proportion of men are in better paid work than women.

However, this hasn’t been reflected in satisfaction levels, with female graduates being shown to be slightly more likely than male graduates to be ‘very satisfied' with their careers (40% of females compared with 34% of males).

The survey has also shown that almost three-quarters of ex-students that graduated in 2002-3 are in full-time work, and eight out of ten are in jobs classified as graduate-level.

Encouragingly, 48% of respondents are ‘fairly satisfied’ with their career so far and a further 37% are ‘very satisfied’.

The median salary of UK-based graduates is £23,000, according to the HESA, and those with a post-graduate qualification have the highest median salary of £28,000.

However, the gender pay gap appearing so early on in graduates’ careers is likely to cause concern. The figures show that many graduates are on relatively low wages, with more than one in five male and more than a quarter of female graduates in full-time work still working for less than £17,500 a year, more than three years after graduating.

The research also shows a group of elite graduates earning the top salaries, but again these are dominated by men, with about one in 30 men but one in 100 women earning more than £50,000.