High earners most likely to be men with university education, study finds

Male university-educated employees with over a decade of management experience in jobs such as computing, sales or finance stand the best chance of having a salary of over £100,000, a study shows.

Just 14% of Britain's top-earning jobs are held by women, making the £100k club resemble something of a "gentlemen's club", said jobs site Adzuna.

Men were more likely to ask for a pay rise and promotion, it was found.

Doug Monro, of Adzuna, said: "The UK gender pay gap may be at its lowest ever level, but our study shows men still account for a starkly unequal share of high earners.

"While the Government's recent ruling that large employers publish their gender pay gap will go some way to combatting this, predictions suggest the gap will take 70 years to close. It's clear there's plenty of work to be done to ensure pay parity at both ends of the scale."

Adzuna's research of over 10,000 CVs of people paid a salary of £100,000 or more showed that the average high earner had 19 years of experience, many with management responsibilities.

Just under a quarter of top-earning employees did not have degree.

Those without a degree had worked longer to be paid £100,000, spending 22 years on average in employment, compared to the 18 years worked by their university-educated counterparts, said the report.