The travel industry’s gender pay gap got bigger last year, mainly due to a wide pay difference at the top of the industry, figures from C&M Travel Recruitment show.
The statistics show that women make up 66% of all roles in travel, yet are paid 13% less than men in the industry on average.
C&M said the ‘average’ female working in travel took home 13.83% less than their male equivalent last year, compared to 11.15% less in 2023, 11.50% less in 2022, 6.48% less in 2021 and 14.15% less in 2019.
This equates to a gender pay gap of £5,238 per woman in 2024, up from £3,678 in 2023, with women earning an average of £35,245 while men received £40,483.
For roles paying up to £29,999, men earned an average of £280 more than women last year. For roles paying between £30,000 and £39,999, men outearned women by an average of £500.
For those in travel jobs paying between £40,000 and £59,999, there was a slightly smaller gap, of 0.71%, with women earning £328 less than men on average.
However, the pay gap widened significantly for roles paying £60,000 or more, with men outearning women by 23.81%, with the average man taking home £83,227 compared to £65,521 for women.
Women continued to be awarded the majority of new jobs in the travel industry in 2024, taking 66.1% of those advertised. This figure is down from 68.3% in 2023, 70.7% in 2022 and 68.7% in 2019.
Women took 68.7% of all new travel jobs paying up to £29,999 compared to 60% in 2023 and 81.6% in 2022; and 70% of all roles paying between £30,000 and £39,999, compared to 70.7% in 2023 and 76.8% in 2022.
Most (61%) of the new positions paying between £40,000 and £59,999 were also taken by women in 2024, compared to 75.9% 2023.
However, for roles paying £60,000 and above, men were awarded the majority of positions, taking 61.1% of the new roles in 2024 – up from 57.9% in 2023.
C&M Managing Director Barbara Kolosinska said: “It’s very disappointing to see that the overall gender pay gap in the travel industry widened last year. After narrowing to 6.5% during the COVID-affected year of 2021 and around 11% in both 2022 and 2023, the gap has now grown to 13.8% – very close to the 14.1% we saw in 2019.
“On the face of it we have made very little progress in combating the gender pay gap over the past five years, which is disheartening to say the least.
“With the gender pay gap increasing for the highest paid in our industry, it’s hard to put a positive spin on these figures. While much has been done at the lower levels of travel in terms of pay disparity in recent years, this report should be a reminder that we should not be complacent.
“The travel industry is a wonderful, inclusive place to work, but we need to do more to ensure that the top of our industry is a reflection of that inclusivity.”
