How big is the gender pay gap in the UK ship industry?

Some 77.8% of companies in the ship industry pay their male employees more than their female staff, a Ship Technology analysis reveals.

The figures, which are based on reporting from all companies in the UK with a headcount of 250 employees or more, show that 14 of the 63 companies that have reported their pay figures had a higher women’s median hourly pay than men.

Across the sector, men’s median hourly pay was 11% higher than that of women. This puts ship industry below the national average of 11.6%.

Among companies in the ship industry, Collins River Enterprises had the biggest difference in median hourly pay, with women earning 48.5% less than men. That means that for each £1 earned by men in the company, women earned 52p. It was followed by Carnival with a pay gap of 38.4% and B.A.I. (UK), with 37.4%.

At the other end, North Star (Guernsey) paid women 12.3% more than men for each hour worked, followed by Canal & River Trust, who paid women 11.5% more and Davies Turner & Co, who paid women 6.5% more.

The gender pay gap in ship industry has increased in the 2021-22 reporting year compared to the year before.

This analysis is based on data from GOV.UK’s Gender pay gap service. We identified companies in the ship industry based on the SIC codes they reported.

The data provides several summary indicators, including the difference in mean and median pay for the two genders. Mean pay indicates the average pay across each group, while the median is the value that sits in the middle of a list of salaries arranged from lowest to highest, with half of salaries being lower than the median and the other half being higher. The median is used to prevent extreme values at either end of the pay scale (a CEO’s salary, for example) from skewing the average. Both indicators have advantages and disadvantages, but we used the median figures in our analysis.

To create an indicator for the ship industry, we averaged the median pay gaps in the industry and weighted them by the company size. That way, a company with 20,000 or more employees would influence the average more than a company that employs 250 people.

While the figures are a good indication of the state of the industry, they should not necessarily be taken at face value. As the first graphic in the article suggests, many companies report a gender pay gap of zero, which is statistically improbable. A minority of companies also reported a gender pay gap of 100%, which might indicate they have no female employees at all.

Because companies are only compelled to disclose summary statistics, the figures cannot be verified.