Women paid 2p more per hour than men in frontline hospitality jobs

Women working in frontline jobs within the hospitality industry are being paid marginally per hour more than men, according to data published by software company Fourth.

The statistics, which analyse the hourly pay of thousands of workers across the hotel, restaurant, fast food and pub sectors, have been made public ahead of new government legislation next month requiring businesses with 250 or more employees to publish their gender pay statistics by April 2018. Any gaps between men and women will be highlighted.

Women are shown to be paid more than men per hour in hotels and quick service restaurants (QSR), but less in restaurants and pubs. Overall, across all sectors women are paid £7.84 per hour, compared with £7.82 paid to men.

Mike Shipley, analytics and insight solutions director at Fourth, said: "The statistics clearly show that the gender pay gap, which favoured men by 21p in 2014, has not only disappeared, but now slightly favours women."

He said that one of the reasons for the pay differential was due to women in the restaurant sector being more likely to work in front-of-house roles, which tend to pay slightly lower hourly rates due to the opportunity to earn tips in addition to wages.

"Back-of-house roles, which tend to be carried out more by men, do not offer the same tips potential, and therefore hourly rates tend to be higher. We believe this is what is driving this result and should be factored in when figures are released by hospitality businesses over the coming year."

The average figure of £7.83 per hour now being paid to men and women is 33p higher than the National Living Wage (NLW) for over 25s, which is due to be introduced next month. Meanwhile, the actual pay of under 21s has continued to outstrip the NLW and now stands at £7.08, which is £1.48 higher than the NLW for under 21s (£5.60).

As a result, the pay gap between under 21s and over 21s is lower than £1 for the first time since the NLW was introduced.