19% average private practice gender pay gap south of border: LSEW survey
A gender pay gap of nearly 20% on average across private practice south of the border has been reported in a survey for the Law Society of England & Wales.
According to the survey, the median average annual salary across all private practice grades in 2015 was £54,000, up 4.8% on the 2014 figure.
Men on average, continued to earn more than women. The gender pay gap based on average (median) annual earnings across private practice solicitors was 19.2%, though this reduced to 10.6% for assistant/associate solicitors.
The survey reports that post-qualification experience, tenure, size of firm, region, practice areas undertaken and hours worked explained a larger amount of variation in earnings than gender, when other factors were controlled for. Median earnings also increased as size of firm increased.
Earnings of female solicitors have also been rising at a faster rate since 2000: women assistant/associates’ median earnings have increased by 18.6% in real terms, compared to a 10.2% jump for men, and in the top quartile of earners by 33.7% compared with 9.5%.
The gender gap has in fact reduced to a level comparable to that seen in 2008, as it widened during the recession years.
Findings are based on a sample of 491 private practitioners, working full time, and either on a permanent contract or at partnership level at the time.
Of solicitors doing any work in a particular practice area, those who specialised (defined as spending 50% or more of fee-earning time on the practice area) had higher median earnings than non-specialists across four of eight practice areas surveyed (business and commercial affairs, commercial property, employment, and family law). The reverse was true for crime, wills and probate, residential conveyancing and personal injury.
Across all grades, those undertaking any work for legally-aided clients had 32% lower earnings than those not serving these clients.