Women Lawyers Earn £50K Less Than Their Male Counterparts

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By Alex Aldridge on

The average female lawyer is paid £51,396 less per year than the average male lawyer, according to a new survey. It’s worth bearing in mind, though, that the survey – by legal recruiter Laurence Simons – is of just 988 predominantly fairly senior UK lawyers; 63% of which work in-house and 37% in private practice. A full breakdown of the results is below…

According to the research, in 2012 women lawyers received total remuneration of £111,293, compared with £162,689 for men. When divided into salary and bonus, women earned an average of £87,671 basic (compared with £115,193 for men) and £23,622 in bonus (compared with £47,496 for men).

The good news is that the gap is narrowing, with male lawyers seeing a fall in total remuneration of £5,228 (from £167,917) since last year, and women enjoying a rise in total pay of £1,391 in that period (from £109,912).

There’s more on the disadvantages faced by women in law in our podcast this afternoon with Law Society president Lucy Scott-Moncrieff.