Sky has an overall mean gender pay gap of 11.5 per cent, but the difference in pay falls to 5.2 per cent within the company’s broadcasting division that includes its news teams.
The gender pay imbalance at the company is attributed to the fact there are proportionally more men than women across the top jobs, both in the most senior positions and in higher-paying roles within its technology division.
UK chief executive Stephen van Rooyen has now pledged to fill half of the company’s most senior roles with women by 2020, saying the gender pay gap will be eliminated once this balance is improved.
The company said it had a mean bonus gap of 40.1 per cent in 2017, although the proportion of men and women receiving bonuses was almost equal (at a difference of just 1 per cent).
Within its broadcasting teams the mean bonus pay gap falls to 18.5 per cent.
Sky claimed that when looking only at on-air employees, the pay gap reduced even further – although Press Gazette could not access this figure at the time of writing.
Within the organisation there are 73 per cent men whose salaries sit in the upper quartile, which is made up of Sky’s highest paid staff members. Within the broadcasting teams that figure falls to 68 per cent.
Van Rooyen said: “Fairness and equality are values that sit at the very heart of our business and we ensure we pay our men and women equally for doing the same role with the same level of experience.
“However, as with many big organisations, we have more men than women in senior, digital and technology roles and this is what is driving our current gender pay gap.
“We know that when we achieve gender balance across these areas our gender pay gap will be eliminated.
“We’ve already initiated a number of programmes aimed at improving gender representation across our many different teams and whilst we’re seeing improvements, we know there is more we can do.”
Sky has launched Women in Leadership, Women in Technology and Women in Home Service internal programmes to improve the gender balance across the company.
Rival national broadcaster the BBC reported a mean gender pay gap of 10.7 per cent and a median gap of 9.3 per cent, although a report into pay imbalance found “no systemic discrimination against women”.
ITN, which encompasses Channel 4 News, ITV News and Channel 5 News, reported a gender pay gap of 20 per cent, which, like Sky, it said was a resulted of having fewer women than men in senior leadership roles.
Sky’s median overall gender pay gap is 17.5 per cent.
Picture: Chris Radburn/PA Wire
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