What the Gender Pay Gap looks like for Architects and Engineers

Recently, we have been bombarded with reports on the Gender Pay Gap. This is because all companies employing more than 250 people in the UK have been legally obliged to report their gender pay gap by the end of March 2018.

Almost all Architectural and Engineering firms escaped having to report !

However, as you can see from the graph below (courtesy of the RIBA) there are precious few architectural firms in the UK that have more than 250 staff:

And the same pattern follows in South Africa (SAIA data):

We also know that a very similar pattern emerges for Consulting Engineers in both countries that we (Fresh Projects) operate in. So, it is safe to say that, apart from a handful of the mega multinational firms, our industry has escaped having to report on the Gender Pay Gap.

We thought it would prove interesting if we analysed the data in the Fresh Projects Database (anonymously, of course!). We can aggregate the data of hundreds of small firms, representing many thousands of employees, and thus are able to highlight the Gender Pay Gap for Architects & Consulting Engineers (despite the fact that almost all firms can escape the reporting requirements).

What exactly is the Gender Pay Gap?

But first, let's clarify what the Gender Pay Gap statistics represent. It is commonly misunderstood that the figures reflect the difference in pay that males and females receive for doing the same job. This is not the case. In fact, there is legislation in both countries that, in theory, makes it illegal for employers to pay men and women different amounts for doing the same job.

The headline Gender Pay Gap measure is the difference between the average salary paid to all men vs the average salary paid to all women in a particular firm. It is a rough indicator of the overall fairness of a firm in both paying and promoting women. Companies with a higher representation of well paid (i.e. senior) women will have a better Gender Pay Gap.

You are probably thinking that comparing the average salaries of all men and women in your practice is not fair. Typical arguments include :

• The types of jobs that women do in my firm (e.g. admin staff) are different to the types that men do (e.g. engineer)
• There just aren't enough qualified female Engineers/Architects on the market - so I couldn't hire them even if I wanted to

But that is EXACTLY the point of highlighting the Gender Gap imbalance - we need to transform the number of women a) graduating in our industry and b) being promoted to the highest levels.

So, while there may be countless explanations as to why your firm doesn't fare well under the Gender Pay Gap measurements, the UK government is attempting - through publishing (naming & shaming) the simple metrics - to provide a mechanism to benchmark and measure transformation. And for this purpose, it is a very useful tool.

In fact this approach reflects the approach we take at Fresh Projects: don't worry about measuring everything and anything - just focus on 3 simple metrics (project profitability, client profitability & employee utilisation) and the rest will follow.

What the Data Says

The UK regulations require companies to report 14 data points relating to the Gender Pay Gap. For the purpose of this analysis, we will focus on the main two statistics : a) mean gender pay gap and b) median gender pay gap. For a great article on the difference between mean and median pay gap, read this FT article.

Here is what the Fresh Projects data tells us about the Gender Pay Gap in UK Architectural and Engineering practices:

And the same analysis of South African practices:

My comments on this:

• The figures for the UK, while still not perfect, are actually not bad compared to the data that has been reported for the 'Construction Industry' (mostly construction firms, rather than AEC professionals, chart courtesy of Bloomberg):

• South Africa has a long way to go in the journey to close the Gender Pay Gap. The data certainly reflects what I see on a daily basis as I interact with construction industry professionals.

I hope this gives you food for thought. If nothing else, it should make you aware of the inequality faced by women in our industry, and hopefully encourage us all to do something about it.

"Countries with higher levels of gender equality have higher economic growth. Companies with more women on their boards have higher returns. Peace agreements that include women are more successful." - Ban Ki-moon