"Whilst it’s true that women are being paid less than men in the same position, it’s clear to me that the gap is also being driven by top female talent leaving estate agency because of the inflexibility our industry offers"
New research by Nested found that the gender pay gap in estate agency has increased to 47.4%, driven by a far higher rate of annual pay growth for men versus their female counterparts.
Across all UK employees, in all industries and sectors, the gender pay gap is currently 32.5% in favour of men - the narrowest pay gap in a decade, having become consistently smaller every year since 2013 when it stood at 39.4%.
In estate agency, however, the latest available data shows that the average pay for men is currently £54,245 per year, while women earn an average of £28,522 - a gender pay gap of 47.4%.
Unlike the topline UK trend where this gap has been narrowing, estate agency has struggled to consistently come closer to equal pay over the last decade. Instead, it has followed a pattern of widening and then narrowing again year upon year, with the gap being at its widest in 2016 when it reached 58.9%
Despite this inconsistency, things looked promising in 2021 when, at 43.2%, the pay gap was the narrowest it has been in the last decade.
However, this positive change was reversed when in 2022, the gap once again started to widen, now sitting at 47.4%.
The main driving force behind this most recent expansion of the gender pay gap is the fact that, in the last year, men have seen a pay increase of 16.1% versus just 7.5% for women.
Alice Bullard, Managing Director at Nested, the modern estate agent, commented:
“The difference in pay between men and women continues to be unfairly skewed towards men across all industries. But at least the overall national figures show things are moving, albeit slowly, in the right direction.
"This makes it doubly infuriating to see that within estate agency, the gap is not only significantly wider than the national benchmark, but it has also widened further in the last year.
"Whilst it’s true that women are being paid less than men in the same position, it’s clear to me that the gap is also being driven by top female talent leaving estate agency because of the inflexibility our industry offers.
"Many employers simply don’t offer the flexibility needed for those returning from maternity leave, for example, which is preventing many women from securing senior roles as they are unable to commit to the archaic 8am-6pm working hours the industry seems so obsessed with.
"Once they hit this ceiling, they are left with little other choice but to sacrifice their hard-earned careers and this is perhaps a far greater issue than the pay gap itself.”
