--- description: The pay gap between men and women has become a heated topic in the UK since the BBC released a list of its top stars' salaries. title: British Women Have Had Enough of Being Paid Less Than Men image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1e72cf3d58c3e74e/6986a441f983e7d7d904fbce/140918_car_paygap21.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [motto](/tag/motto/) ## motto Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # British Women Have Had Enough of Being Paid Less Than Men by [Kate Samuelson](/author/kate-samuelson/) ## Kate Samuelson Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Aug 3, 2017 4:06 PM CUT  iStock by [Kate Samuelson](/author/kate-samuelson/) ## Kate Samuelson Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Aug 3, 2017 4:06 PM CUT Advocates hope the [United Kingdom](http://time.com/tag/united-kingdom/ "undefined") may be at a turning point when it comes to closing its [gender pay gap](http://motto.time.com/4201637/pay-gap-calculator/ "undefined"): as more companies release salary figures detailing their own disparities, women are standing up and demanding immediate change. Journalists at the Financial _Times_ [held an emergency meeting](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-31/financial-times-staff-call-emergency-meeting-over-gender-pay-gap "undefined") on Wednesday, demanding that the paper’s management [address its pay gap](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/aug/02/financial-times-journalists-vote-for-industrial-action-over-gender-pay-gap "undefined") by 2020\. After discovering that the _Times_‘ women are paid almost 13% less than men, employees [threatened to strike](http://fortune.com/2017/07/31/gender-pay-gap-ft-bbc/ "undefined") on Monday. Earlier this month, the BBC [revealed](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jul/19/evans-lineker-bbc-top-earners-only-two-women-among-best-paid-stars "undefined") that two-thirds of its top earners are men. The broadcasting company’s highest-paid star, [_Top Gear_‘s Chris Evans, ](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jul/19/evans-lineker-bbc-top-earners-only-two-women-among-best-paid-stars "undefined")brought home between £2.2m ($2.9m) and £2.25m ($3m) last year — [nearly five times](http://fortune.com/2017/07/19/bbc-gender-pay-gap/ "undefined") what its highest paid female, Claudia Winkleman, who presents the U.K.’s version of _Dancing with the Stars_, earns. And media companies aren’t alone. U.K. bank TSB [revealed in July ](http://www.tsb.co.uk/straightforward-money/truth-and-banking/tsb-gender-pay-gap-report-2017/ "undefined")that its female employees are paid on average 31% less than its male employees, with an additional gap of 53% when it comes to bonus pay. “Our mean gender pay gap is smaller than the indicative average for the financial services industry,” TSB said in [a statement](http://www.tsb.co.uk/straightforward-money/truth-and-banking/tsb-gender-pay-gap-report-2017/ "undefined"). “However, it’s still greater than the UK average for all industries. So naturally we wanted to understand what’s driving our pay gap and understand what we can do to improve it.” Meanwhile, the Church of England [released data this week](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/church-of-england-reveals-40-gender-pay-gap-vcthtvk3d "undefined") that shows its male employees make over 40% more than women. “The pay difference for nearly three-quarters of our staff is less than one per cent, and for half of staff there is no gap in pay between men and women,” a spokesperson for the Church of England said in a statement, [according to the _Telegraph_](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/01/church-england-reveals-41-per-cent-gender-pay-gap-central-office/ "undefined"). “However, the data also shows where we have more work to do in reducing the difference in pay between men and women in more highly paid roles, and improving the ratio of men to women in the most senior and most junior roles. The U.K. parliament [passed a law](http://motto.time.com/4728446/british-companies-equal-pay-regulation/ "undefined") in April that will require all British companies with more than 250 employees to release both their median and mean gender pay gap figures by April 2018. At the BBC, Tony Hall, the media company’s director general, [pledged](https://www.theguardian.com/media/live/2017/jul/19/bbc-publishes-salaries-of-highest-earning-stars-live-updates?page=with:block-596f0732e4b0d3b5652c1024#block-596f0732e4b0d3b5652c1024 "undefined") to close the gender pay gap by 2020\. But that wasn’t enough for 40 female stars at the company, who called on Hall to close the gap immediately in an [open letter ](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jul/22/female-bbc-top-talent-urge-corporation-to-act-now-on-pay-and-gender "undefined")published on July 22**.** “You have said that you will ‘sort’ the gender pay gap by 2020, but the BBC has known about the pay disparity for years,” the letter said. “We all want to go on the record to call upon you to act now.” (Hall [later responded](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jul/23/director-general-says-he-wants-bbc-at-forefront-of-change-on-equal-pay "undefined"), saying he hopes the company can close its gap before 2020.) Journalists at the Financial _Times_ echoed the sentiment of the BBC’s women. Steven Bird, who heads the paper’s journalism union, [wrote in an email](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jul/31/ft-journalists-threaten-to-strike-over-gender-pay-gap "undefined") to around 600 employees that the _Times_‘ top brass wasn’t doing enough to address the issue. “The company’s ‘ambition’ to reach equality by 2022 is worse than the BBC’s present target of 2020,” Bird wrote, according to [Sky News.](http://news.sky.com/story/ft-journalists-may-strike-over-gender-pay-gap-10968055 "undefined") The gender pay gap has long festered in the U.K. Even though the country passed an [Equal Pay Act over 45 years ago](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/06/equal-pay-gender-gap-britain-women-earnings-men "undefined"), which [stipulated](https://www.closethegap.org.uk/content/gap-law-1970/ "undefined") that women and men should be paid equally for the same work, women are still paid [approximately 13.9%](https://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/policy-research/the-gender-pay-gap/ "undefined") less than men — [one of the worst](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/12/which-european-countries-have-the-biggest-gender-pay-gaps/ "undefined") wage disparities in all of Europe, according to research by [Eurostat](http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/about/overview "undefined"), the statistical office of the European Union. In the United States, women earn on average [79%](https://qz.com/503484/the-us-gender-wage-gap-the-narrowest-in-history-is-still-awful/ "undefined") of what men make, according to [data from the Census Bureau.](https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p60-252.pdf "undefined") But the responsefrom female employees at both companies has pushed the discussion about Britain’s [gender pay gap](http://motto.time.com/4504571/only-136-more-years-until-the-pay-gap-closes/ "undefined") off the sidelines. It’s clear that the gender pay gap has moved to the forefront of the country’s consciousness, and [many advocates](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/23/business-leader-transparency-on-pay-is-best-hope-of-improvement "undefined") say it’s [encouraging](http://fortune.com/2017/04/18/gender-pay-gap-google-uk-reporting-2016/ "undefined") that companies are finally forced to be honest about how far they still have to go. “Here is the real hard fact: women are paid less because we are considered to be worth less,”Sophie Walker, the leader of the [Women’s Equality Party](http://www.womensequality.org.uk/ "undefined"), wrote in an [op-ed published last week](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/23/bbc-all-public-service-broadcasters-gender-pay-gap "undefined"). “The gender pay gap is a symptom of the structural barriers that women face, which can be seen at every level of working life and across every industry.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4880505/britain-gender-pay-gap-bbc-2/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4880505/britain-gender-pay-gap-bbc-2/"},"headline":"British Women Have Had Enough of Being Paid Less Than Men","datePublished":"2017-08-03T16:06:44.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T09:05:49.636Z","description":"'Information is power'","url":"https://time.com/4880505/britain-gender-pay-gap-bbc-2/","keywords":["motto","gender pay gap","United Kingdom","BBC","pay gap"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1e72cf3d58c3e74e/6986a441f983e7d7d904fbce/140918_car_paygap21.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Kate Samuelson","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/kate-samuelson/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1e72cf3d58c3e74e/6986a441f983e7d7d904fbce/140918_car_paygap21.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"140918_CAR_Paygap2","caption":"woman standing at bottom of steps with man standing above her","creditText":"iStock","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/motto/","name":"motto"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4880505/britain-gender-pay-gap-bbc-2/","name":"British Women Have Had Enough of Being Paid Less Than Men"}}]}] ```