Gender pay gap in travel industry widens as women miss out on top jobs

Women are still routinely overlooked for the top jobs in travel despite dominating the workplace, according to new research.

Recruitment agency C&M, which fills both standard and executive roles, said its findings revealed that women took 69% of all new travel jobs in 2018 but accounted for just 38% of all executive positions that commanded a salary of £40,000 or more. In contrast, women took 74% of all junior jobs, which paid less than £22,000.

Three-quarters of mid-level roles, paying between £22,000 and £29,999, were occupied by women, who also took 62% of all senior travel jobs paying between £30,000 and £39,999.

C&M also found that the gender pay gap within the travel industry increased significantly last year, when the average male employee earned 18.4% more than their female counterparts. In 2017, they earned 12.8% more.

Its findings back those of the BBC, whose latest report also confirmed that the gender pay gap has widened in favour of men at 45% of the UK’s biggest employers across all industries. Overall, the broadcaster’s research revealed that 78% of firms have a pay gap in favour of men while only 14% had a pay gap in favour of women.

C&M said its own comparisons weren’t necessarily for exactly the same jobs, but they were for similar jobs within the same wage bracket.

It said that while it would expect to see a margin of ‘one or two percent either way’ it said it was striking that women earn less than men at all levels in the industry.

"We would have expected to see women out-earn men in at least one of the four salary brackets," it said.

Although men earned more than women at all levels in the travel industry, the overall salary gap was almost entirely due to the pay differential for executive roles and the skew towards men securing such positions, according to C&M.

The salary difference for entry-level roles was a relatively small 1.8%, with the average woman earning £18,081 or £329 less than a male counterpart, while the gap for mid-level positions stood at 1.25% or £316, with the typical female taking home £25,070.

Pay for senior travel roles was almost at parity, with women earning an average of £32,488, 0.4% or £117 less than male equivalents. However, there was a large gap in salary for higher-paid executive travel jobs, with women in such roles making an average of £51,503 per year compared to £57,245 – a difference of 10.6% or £5,742.

C&M director Barbara Kolosinska said: "Despite the huge amounts of press coverage, the gender pay gap still appears to be widening in the travel industry. This is very disappointing to see, and it means that many companies in our industry will need to work harder to ensure that we move closer towards achieving pay parity. In particular, we need to see more women securing higher-paid executive positions.

"Companies can certainly do more to ensure their recruitment process is more inclusive, but we live in a culture where women do not historically put themselves forward for the top roles as readily as men do. So as an industry, we need to encourage and support females to have the confidence and belief that they deserve to be considered for these positions."

Sarah Clayton-Turner, chair of The Association of Women Travel Executives, added: "Just when you think that we are starting to make some headway with all of the recent gender pay gap initiatives, it would appear that we still have such a long way to go in our industry.

"While it’s great that we are seeing some parity in senior roles, I find it incredible that there is still such an imbalance of a 10% pay difference in executive roles. We have to look into why this is – are females simply not applying for these roles? If not, why not? It’s something we are very passionate about at AWTE, and we have confidence-building courses running throughout the year for our members in an attempt to tackle some of these issues."