Women now outnumber men but still earn less in travel industry

Despite holding the vast majority of roles within the travel industry, women are still routinely earning less than their male equivalents, according to a new research.

According to exclusive new research from C&M Travel Recruitment and C&M Executive Recruitment, Females accounted for 67 per cent of all new travel placements in the first four months of 2017, but received smaller pay packets than their male counterparts in almost all levels of the industry.

Women starting new executive roles (those paying £40,000 or more) took home an average of £47,571 in 2017, which was 7.56 per cent less than the typical male executive (£51,167), while females earned 1.54 per cent less than men in senior roles (those paying between £30,000 and £39,999) and 3.21 per cent less than males in mid-level travel positions (those paying between £22,000 and £29,999).

The exception was for junior travel roles (those paying below £22,000), where women marginally out-earned males by 0.53 per cent or £96 (£18,126 compared to £18,030).

Barbara Kolosinska, Director at C&M Travel Recruitment and C&M Executive Recruitment, said: “It feels as though we’ve been talking about the gender pay gap forever and yet our new figures show that the problem is still prevalent in the travel industry. Thankfully, the gap has all but disappeared for entry level and junior roles, but women are still routinely earning less than men for the average mid-level or senior position.

“When female executives are typically earning £3,500 less than men in similar roles, it is evident that we have an issue. The travel industry is a fantastic place for both women and men to work, and I believe we have a far better attitude and approach to gender equality than many other industries, but it is clear that more can still be done.”

Gender job split

In terms of the number of new placements made so far this year, C&M’s research shows that women now outnumber men at all levels of the industry.

In total, females accounted for 75 per cent of all junior placements in the first four months of 2017, 66 per cent of all mid-level appointments, 51 per cent of all senior positions and 54 per cent of all executive placements.

“Our figures show that more women have been appointed in senior and executive roles than men so far this year and that is a truly encouraging finding,” said Ms Kolosinska,

“We have become used to seeing men hold the majority of high-powered jobs in the UK, but it seems that the travel industry could be the exception. These figures are in contrast to those from the start of last year, so whether this proves to be a long-term trend or merely a short-term blip will be fascinating to see and we will be keeping a close eye on this throughout the rest of 2017.”