CR & Sustainability Gender Pay Gap Narrows

​There is still room for improvement surrounding the remuneration disparities between men and women, despite the narrowing of the gender pay gap globally, according to the CR & Sustainability (CR&S) Salary Survey 2020.

A total of 57 per cent of women took part in this year’s salary survey, conducted by Acre, Carnstone and Flag, and data showed the overall pay gap narrowed slightly from 13 per cent in 2018 to 10 per cent in 2020. While it narrowed in the UK from 19 per cent to 16 per cent, the gap increased slightly in the Rest of Europe (to 22 per cent from 20 per cent) and North America (increasing from parity to 14 per cent); however, there were more participants from the latter two regions this year which may explain why a different picture is painted.

The CR&S Salary Survey 2020 reveals women are now in the majority in all generic job categories (excluding director/partner roles in consultancies) and so the persistence of the gender pay gap remains a hot topic.

Caroline Hill, Head of Responsible Business Strategy, Lloyd’s Banking Group said:

“It is good to see progress, albeit small, on closing the gender pay gap for CR&S roles. However, overall, progress in this area is still disappointingly incremental and slow. If the sample size allows, it may also be valuable to examine the ethnicity pay gap in the next survey.”

Marie Cloherty, Manager - CR&S, Acre, said:

“It’s encouraging to see that the gender pay gap is narrowing. From a sustainability perspective, we’ve felt that our clients have offered fair and equal pay, regardless of the gender of the candidates. Furthermore, we have experienced a sharp rise in individuals who identify as ‘she/her’ securing the top leadership positions in Sustainability this year – many of whom were notably more confident around their remuneration expectations. This resulted in these candidates not only finding that their salary expectations were met, but in many cases, exceeded.”

For further details about the gender pay gap results, or to find out what the highest paid industries for CR&S professionals are, click here to download a copy of the full report.

If you would like to discuss salary benchmarking for yourself or for a member of your team, please contact cr@acre.com or +44 (0) 20 7400 5570.