// Retail is falling behind with a pay gap of 17%
// Only engineering & pharmaceuticals industries have seen a notable change in pay equality
The retail industry has a gender pay gap that could take more than a decade to close despite many large retailers taking major steps to reduce theirs, a new report has found.
The report also found that the retail sector was severely falling behind with a pay gap of 17 per cent.
The results from SJD Accountancy revealed that although improvements have been made, if the retail gender pay gap continued to increase at this rate, full pay equality by the next decade will be difficult to reach.
The accountancy firm conducted the survey to find out the salaries of both men and women working across different sectors in the UK.
With a new decade underway, equality in the workplace continues to be a strong focus for many companies across industries.
Focusing on contract workers, the survey highlighted that the findings are essential for industries to see where they can drastically improve and hopefully eliminate the gender pay gap before 2030.
The survey underlines that some sectors have far more work to do than others – retail is one of those, along with 11 other industries.
To further highlight pay inequality, SJD created a gender pay gap tool for employees to see the difference in their own sector, particularly highlighting contract workers in various industries, including finance, health, science and creative media.
Within the 14 major industries researched, the survey stipulated that only two sectors – engineering and pharmaceuticals have seen notable change in pay equality since 2018.
All sectors and their positive and negative pay gaps can be seen below.
| Sector | 2018 Gap % | 2019 Gap % | Difference |
| Accountancy | 28% | 22% | 6% |
| Construction | N/a | 10% | N/a |
| Creative media | 10% | 15% | -5% |
| Education | N/a | 36% | N/a |
| Engineering | 6% | 4% | 2% |
| Financial services | 1% | 19% | -18% |
| Healthcare | -42% | 16% | -58% |
| IT | 8% | 12% | -4% |
| Manufacturing | N/a | 17% | N/a |
| Retail | N/a | 17% | N/a |
| Telecoms | 10% | 45% | -35% |
| Professional services | 9% | 23% | -14% |
| Oil, gas, energy | 49% | 66% | -17% |
| Pharmaceuticals | 41% | 10% | 31% |
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