There is a gender pay gap in headteacher salaries, with men earning more than their female peers in every sector of the state-funded school system, Tes can reveal.

Union leaders have expressed concern about the “disturbing” findings and claim the situation has been made worse by the deregulation of teacher pay.

According to analysis by Tes of the Department for Education’s latest school workforce statistics, across all state-funded schools male heads earned 12.5 per cent more than their female counterparts in 2016.

The average male headteacher took home £73,700 per year, compared to the £65,500 received by female heads.

Much of that pay gap can be explained by the overrepresentation of men in leadership positions in the higher-paying secondary sector - but not all of it.

Male heads still earned more on average than their female peers in every sector of the state-funded school system - in academies, at local authority maintained schools and across both phases.

Biggest gap

The biggest gender pay gap in any one sector was among heads of primary academies, where men earned an average of £4,000 - or 6.2 per cent - more than their female counterparts.

They took home £68,300 on average, compared to the £64,300 earned by the women who make up 69 per cent of primary academy heads.

In the highest paid sector - secondary academies - there was a 3 per cent gap, with male heads on average earning £93,600 a year, compared to the £90,900 earned by women.

In primary maintained schools the gap was 2.9 per cent, while in secondary maintained schools it was 1.3 per cent.

The revelations were criticised by union leaders. Mary Bousted, ATL’s general secretary, said: “Women have never achieved equal pay for equal work”.

“In that respect, teaching is no different from virtually any other profession. The only difference is that teaching is an overwhelmingly female profession.”

Exacerbated by government reforms

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT union, said the findings were “disturbing, yet unsurprising”.

She said the gap had been exacerbated by government reforms, such as academies having the freedom to create their own pay structures and the scrapping of automatic pay progression in maintained schools.

A DfE spokeswoman said that the UK gender pay gap was at “a record low”, but there was “more to be done to make sure all women are treated equally”.

The government has required all large employers - including schools - to record details of their gender pay and bonus data in April 2017 and publish it within a year.

The spokeswoman added: “While it is up to schools to decide how much they pay their staff, the department is clear that governing bodies should pay full consideration to relevant equalities legislation when setting headteacher pay.”

This is an edited article from the 31 March edition of Tes. Subscribers can read the full article here. This week’s Tes magazine is available in all good newsagents. To download the digital edition, Android users can click here and iOS users can click here