The University and College Union (UCU) has released a league table of the colleges and universities in the UK with the least equal pay.

The damning report, entitled Holding Down Women’s Pay, highlights which FE colleges have the largest salary discrepancies between their male and female lecturers.

In almost two-thirds of the colleges that offered data for the report, male lecturers were paid on average £1,000 more than their female colleagues. The report also identified that one in every five of women working in the FE sector was paid below what is regarded as the bottom of the national scale.

Kirklees College in Yorkshire topped the chart of English colleges, paying female lecturers an average of £5,959 less than their male colleagues - a pay gap of 19.3 per cent. In the 10 worst offending colleges, the pay gap between the average pay for women and men was greater than 8 per cent.

UCU general secretary Sally Hunt said: “These colleges and universities should not have allowed such shameful levels of pay inequality to persist. It’s nearly 50 years since the Equal Pay Act came into force and they’re still flying in the face of it.

“Today on International Women’s Day, we would like to see a firm commitment from sector leaders to close the gap and are offering to work with institutions to make equal pay at every college and university a reality.”

For the list of the top 30 colleges with the largest pay gaps, see below:

*City College Norwich has advised the UCU that the information contained in the table above is incorrect for reasons they describe as an “administrative error”.

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