Thousands of employers across the UK construction industry with over 250 staff have been required to publish their gender pay gap figures, as the government hopes to uncover the barriers preventing women from reaching the top
Laing O’Rourke has recorded the lowest disparity in pay between men and women among the UK’s top 30 main contractors.
Construction ranks as one of the worst industries for pay inequality with women paid 36% less than men on average.
The first returns by leading main contractors have revealed that Laing O’Rourke is considerably ahead on pay equality with women on average paid just under 9% less than men.
Companies had to file data based on a “snapshot” of their payroll taken on 5 April 2017.
The discrepancy among major players is widened as fewer women are among the top earners in the industry.
This appears to have affected BAM Construct which recorded the highest pay gap and women accounting for 68% of the lowest quartile of earners in its workforce.
The listing of the top 30 main contractors compiled by the Enquirer is ranked by the median, which gives a good sense of where a company is overall, the mean figures will include the outliers with large salaries.
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Main contractor pay gap reports |
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| Hourly rate % lower than men | % of women in pay quartile | |||
| Mean | Median | Highest paid | Lowest Paid | |
| Laing O’Rourke Services | 6.6 | 8.8 | 9.8 | 13.4 |
| Ferrovial Agroman UK | 20.6 | 20.7 | 18 | 54 |
| Kier Ltd | 27 | 26 | 12.0 | 39.0 |
| Skanska UK plc | 27.2 | 26.7 | 10.9 | 36.8 |
| Costain Eng & Con | 26.6 | 27 | 9.9 | 43.6 |
| BAM Nuttall | 26.2 | 27.7 | 7.0 | 33.0 |
| Keepmoat Ltd | 19.6 | 28.5 | 28 | 48 |
| Interserve Construction | 30.3 | 29.7 | 4 | 27.6 |
| Sir Robert McAlpine | 29.4 | 30 | 7.4 | 27.5 |
| VolkerWessels UK | 38.2 | 30.5 | 9.1 | 32 |
| Balfour Beatty Group Emp | 27 | 33 | 7.0 | 31.0 |
| Wates Group Services | 29.5 | 33 | 10.0 | 39.8 |
| Lendlease Construction Europe | 30.4 | 33 | 6 | 33 |
| Morgan Sindall Group | 31 | 33 | 8.0 | 31.0 |
| Galliford Try Emp | 30.7 | 33.2 | 9.3 | 36.7 |
| Geoffrey Osborne | 36 | 34.2 | 8 | 48 |
| Ardmore Construction | 31 | 35 | 12 | 40 |
| John Graham Construction | 37.4 | 36.8 | 7 | 36.6 |
| Buckingham Group | 30.4 | 38.4 | 2.7 | 33.6 |
| Mace | 34.5 | 39.9 | 7 | 48 |
| ISG Construction | 34.7 | 40.5 | 4.8 | 41.9 |
| Bouygues UK | 31.6 | 40.9 | 11.6 | 54.5 |
| Willmott Dixon Construction | 35.5 | 43.5 | 4.7 | 42.5 |
| John Sisk | 37.3 | 44.5 | 5 | 46 |
| Bowmer & Kirkland | 37.3 | 44.6 | 5 | 35 |
| Multiplex Europe | 43 | 47.2 | 5 | 43.6 |
| Vinci Construction UK | 43.6 | 48.5 | 7.0 | 55.1 |
| McLaren | 48 | 51 | 2.8 | 43.4 |
| Midas Group | 49.2 | 51.5 | 1.0 | 48.6 |
| BAM Construct UK | 46.9 | 59.6 | 7.4 | 68.0 |
The mean hourly rate is the average hourly wage across the entire company so the mean gender pay gap is a measure of the difference between women’s mean hourly wages and men’s mean hourly wages.
The median hourly rate is calculated by ranking all employees from the highest paid to the lowest paid, and taking the hourly wage of the person in the middle; therefore the median gender pay gap is the difference between women’s median hourly wage (the middle paid woman) and men’s median hourly wage (the middle paid man).
