Shell narrows gender pay gap but women still earn a fifth less

Royal Dutch Shell has revealed that women at the company earnalmostone-fifthlessthan their male counterparts.

The FTSE 100-listed oil giant said that Shell UK has an average gender pay gap of 18.6 per cent in 2018, an improvement on 22.2 per cent last year.

Shell attributed the gap to a lack of women in senior management positions and specialist and trading roles that have higher pay, as well as “over many years, relatively fewer women studying engineering at university”.

In each of the Shell companies in the UK and across Shell UK, 67 per cent of its employees are male.

Sinead Lynch, Shell UK country chairman, said: “Eve- ryone should have the opportunity to fulfil their potential. Improving the gender balance is fundamental to the continued success of our business.

“We need to attract the best minds and build a culture where every voice can speak up and every voice is heard.”

The report comes after UK government rules were introduced requiring all UK companies and public sector organ- isations with 250 or more employees to publicly report their gender pay gap.

Shell said it has made “good progress, but there is more to do” to address the imbalance.

It is aiming to ensure 35 per cent of its senior leaders are women by 2025. In the past 13 years the number of female senior leaders in the UK has jumped from 12 per cent to 28.1 per cent. 0 Shell said there was ‘more to do’ to address the imbalance