Europe's Gender Pay Gap for Finance Boards at Worst in Six Years

(Bloomberg) -- The gender pay gap on the boards of European financial services firms widened to its worst level in six years.

Female non-executive directors at banks, insurers and asset managers in the region earned just 62% as much as men in 2024, compared with 65% in 2023, according to data compiled by the consultancy EY.

This is the largest gender pay gap in Europe since 2019 when EY started to collect the data.

The widening disparity comes despite more women being recruited for boards, EY found. Women made up 41% of non-executives in the industry in 2024, a 6 percentage point increase from 2020.

There was a smaller discrepancy in North America, where women earned 94% of their male counterparts, the same level as the year before, according to EY. They made up 38% of non-executive roles, also up 6 percentage points in four years.

“The widening gender pay gap in Europe’s largest financial firms is a stark reminder that greater representation does not directly translate into pay parity,” said Omar Ali, EY global financial services leader. “While board-level gender diversity is rising, it is at a slow pace and tapers with age.”

At a global level, female board directors at financial services firms were paid 22% less than their male counterparts in 2024, with remuneration of $252,672 compared with $325,402 for men. The gap has remained largely unchanged over the past five years.

EY’s Global Financial Services Boardroom Monitor tracks non-executives’ pay data in Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific region. 

The research also found a growing pay premium for older non-executives, with the discrepancy for board members aged 70 and over standing at 24% in Europe and 43% in the Asia Pacific region. It was at its smallest in the US and Canada, at 8%. 

Valuing experience is understandable but in financial services where digital expertise is crucial, those skills may also lie with younger candidates, Ali said.

Financial firms’ need for technology and transformation skills should help women, according to separate research by 25X25, a London-based women’s leadership advocacy group formed to help boost the level of female talent at the top of British companies. 

It found that women make up just over half of current board members with relevant backgrounds, according to Tara Cemlyn-Jones, founder and chief executive officer of 25X25. “An investment in this skillset is therefore likely to also result in better executive gender-balance,” she said.

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