Yesterday was International Women's Day - a chance to focus on continuing issues around equality between the sexes. One survey pointed to continuing gaps in pay between City professionals.

Women still have a lot of ground to make up on men when it comes to the financial careers market.

A survey of women working as traders in the UK’s financial industry showed they earned bonuses worth about half of what were paid to their male counterparts, a finding which was issued as gender equality was highlighted on International Women’s Day.

Emolument.com, which gathers pay data from financial industry professionals, examined a variety of positions in the sector, pointing to inequalities in pay and other metrics on a number of fronts.

Based on figures from 615 merger and acquisition and trading professionals, it showed the average bonus paid to women in trading was £78,000 ($111,000) less than that for men, while those working in M&A make £29,000 ($41,000) less. Although those amounts are respectively 50 per cent and 25 per cent less than those paid to their male counterparts, 33 per cent of women were satisfied with their bonus amount versus 30 per cent of men.

In total, Emolument.com analysed data from 4,700 UK front-office bankers.

The data also showed that it takes women six months more on average than men to be promoted to associate and VP positions. This difference levels out when being promoted to director, but increases to two years for becoming managing director.

“While transparency in pay has come leaps and bounds in the financial services industry since 2008, there is still a clear pay gap between men and women, especially in the more opaque bonus component of remuneration,” said Alice Leguay, co-founder and chief operating officer at Emolument.com.

“Without formal processes such as the recent government's consultation, it is very likely that banks may not be aware of the pay gap within their own firms until they analyse their pay information,” she added.

Promoting diversity in the financial sector has been a focus in an industry renowned for its male-dominated culture. Women are also known to be less likely to ask for pay rises and promotions, the impact of which is visible in these findings.

Stages of life
Another survey, conducted by the CFA UK Society and also released on International Women's Day, showed that the first five years of work in the financial industry are seen as the ones with the most gender-related issues for women in finance.

The respondents did not widely regard gender as an impediment to progressing to senior roles within asset management firms, but they saw it reflected in pay inequality. 

Two-thirds (62 per cent) of those polled said they did not think women were paid equally to men in similar positions at their firm. And with long working hours, 41 per cent of respondents found the lack of flexible hours to be a significant barrier in optimising their careers.  

The results also showed an overwhelming consensus (92 per cent) that finance is an attractive career option for women, with school and university playing an instrumental role in inspiring women to enter the profession.

The CFA UK Society surveyed more than 100 people, 98 per cent of which were women. The largest proportion of them (41.4 per cent) had a tenure in asset management ranging from 10 to 20 years (only 5 per cent of respondents had worked for less than five years).