Gender pay gap shows narrow fall

The gender pay gap has fallen slightly to 9.4%, the lowest since 1997, but little has changed for the past four years, figures have shown.

The difference between the median earnings of full-time men and women workers fell by 0.2% compared with last year.

A similar trend was found for full and part-time employees, where the gap remained unchanged at 19.2%, the Office for National Statistics reported.

Campaigners said that on the current rate of progress, it will be decades before women earn the same as men.

The figures showed that median weekly earnings for full-time workers were £528 in April, an increase of £10 or 1.8% on the previous year, following annual growth of 0.2% the previous year.

Adjusted for inflation, weekly earnings rose by 1.9% on last year, the first increase since 2008.

The bottom 10% of full-time workers earned less than £297 a week, while the top 10% were paid more than £1,035.