Marks and Spencer’s gender pay gap has increased by around a quarter in the three years after it announced “meaningful” measures to tackle inequality.
The grocer revealed its 2020 median pay gap was 4.1 per cent, up by 0.8 per cent from 2017.
After the 2017 figures were published, head of talent Simmone Haywood pledged to try and “take action to close any gaps” in pay.
Marks and Spencer also announced it would begin coaching mid-level women into senior roles.
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However, just one member of the current executive committee is a woman: Katie Bickerstaffe, who shares the chief operating officer role with Stuart Machin.
The supermarket’s mean pay gap stood unchanged from 2017 levels at 12.3 per cent, three points below the national average.
“As a retailer with over 70 per cent of our colleagues female, we’re committed to being a more inclusive business where everyone feels they can belong,” a Marks and Spencer spokeswoman said.
“Our 2017 figures represent an anomaly within our reporting, as they reflect a period when we made changes to our pay and pensions in April 2017.
“This resulted in additional one-off payments for some colleagues at the same time as the gender pay gap reporting period.”
The government has required businesses with more than 250 employees to publish their gender pay gap data since 2018.
