More than half of the 100 employers with the biggest gender pay gaps in the current year are schools, Tes can reveal.

Analysis of the latest gender pay gap data shows that currently 58 of the 100 employers with the biggest median pay gap are schools or academy trusts, despite primary and secondary education making up only 9 per cent of organisations that have reported their data so far.

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The two academy trusts that currently have the joint biggest median pay gaps are RMET, a three-school academy trust whose lead school is Rainham Mark Grammar School in Gillingham, Kent, and Dayspring Trust, a two-school academy trust based at the Venerable Bede CE Academy in Sunderland.

These trusts both have a median pay gap of 66 per cent, meaning that women earn 34p for every £1 that men earn when comparing median wages. The median pay gap is the gap between the typical woman’s wage and the typical man’s wage in an organisation.

The gender pay gap in schools

In contrast, the Royal Masonic School for Girls in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, has a median pay gap of -30 per cent, meaning women earn £1.30 for every £1 that men earn when comparing median wages.

In a supporting statement to the gender pay gap report on its website, RMET states that: “The trust is confident that the reported gender pay gap does not result from paying men and women differently for the same or equivalent work and is committed to providing a fair working environment.”

More than half (52.4 per cent ) of people in the highest paid jobs at the trust are women.

RMET did not have to report gender pay gap data last year, which is only needed for companies with more than 250 employees. This year it had 252.  

The Dayspring Trust, where 73 per cent of the highest paid jobs are occupied by women, had a median pay gap of 21 per cent last year. It has not provided extra information on the pay gap.

The Royal Masonic School for Girls said in its supporting statement that it was committed to equal treatment for all employees and had a clear policy of paying employees equally for the same or equivalent work, regardless of sex.

A gender pay gap does not mean that the men and women are paid differently for the same job: it can arise from more men being employed in higher-paying jobs and more women on low pay rates.

The median pay gap is the gap between the midpoint of men’s wages and the midpoint of women’s wages. 

An analysis by Mime Consulting, an education data company, published last month estimated that 257,000 female teaching assistants would need to train as teachers to get rid of the gender pay gap in schools.

Last year, 10,543 employers reported gender pay gap data. At the time of analysis today, 3,630 employers had filed their data for the year 2018-19. Around 334 of these employers are schools or academy trusts.

Of the large multi-academy trusts, with ten or more schools, which have filed so far, Ark Schools has a median gender pay gap of 20 per cent compared with 18 per cent last year, Delta Academies Trust has a gap of 45 per cent compared with 47.8 per cent last year and Northern Education Trust has a gap of 25.8 per cent compared with 27.3 per cent last year.

Last year, after 6,600 - more than half - of the organisations eligible to report gender pay gaps had done so, 51 of 100 firms with the largest median pay gaps were schools or academy trusts.

The deadline for filing gender pay gap data for 2018-19 is 31 March 2019 for public sector employers and 5 April 2019 for private or voluntary sector employers. Only employers with more than 250 employers are required to report gender pay gap data.