End the gender pay gap at King’s College London!
This petition had 1,750 supporters
Women academics at King’s College London are paid over £10,000 LESS than men.
Scant attention has been given to the recent findings published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency showing that women academics at King’s are paid £46,030 on average whilst men are paid £56,301 - a 19% difference. That’s a bigger pay gap than what the ‘Made in Dagenham’ women encountered at Ford in the ‘60s. Slightly embarrassing.
The lack of formal response from King’s with respect to investigating and then addressing this pay gap is upsetting. This discrepancy demonstrates that the contributions made by women academics to the King’s community through their research and teaching are not valued as much as the work done by men in equivalent positions. This is damaging to morale and degrading.
The gender pay gap is of course old news, yet The Fawcett Society, a leading UK charity for women's rights, estimates it will take over 52 years for it to close! This means that current or aspiring women academics are unlikely to see any changes during our careers. In addition to the moral imperative of reducing gender pay gaps, it is well known that there are significant macroeconomic gains to be had from reducing such disparities.
The lack of transparency when it comes to pay in the UK is a huge part of the issue, and countries that enforce transparency such as Sweden, Denmark and Belgium report smaller pay gaps. PWC in the UK is one of few companies that publish their pay gap, and they report a positive impact from this, as it has led to fairer practices being implemented.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission recommend that, in comparing groups undertaking work of equal value, pay differences of 5% or more should be investigated. It feels like there is change happening at KCL, with the exciting news that throughout the Health Schools, three institutes have been granted an Athena SWAN Silver Level Award for their progressive work in promoting and advancing the careers of women in science. We would like these actions to be complemented by an investigation including recommendations of how to address this pay gap amongst academic staff.
We would like Principal Ed Byrne, with other members of senior management, to lead the way in eradicating this pay gap by committing to the following:
- Make publicly available the results of the pay review conducted 2 years ago (as done by other universities such as LSE), with salaries related to gender and ethnicity, and overall pay gaps highlighted, as well as pay gaps across individual salary bands and academic positions.
- The working group on this issue should report back within three months of the submission of this petition, detailing the actions they propose to take.
- Make a public statement acknowledging their failures on this issue and a firm commitment to addressing the gender pay gap by 2020.

