Sydney Accounting Salary Survey insights: The gender pay gap

We’re proud to have just released the very first edition of the Richard Lloyd Sydney Accounting Salary Report. The survey of over 2,000 Accounting professionals, looked at job titles, base salary, experience, tenure, bonus and benefits, location, career motivators and willingness to move companies. This gave us a snapshot of what the Sydney Accounting sector looks like; who inhabits it, where they work, and how much they’re being paid. From this data, we drew some extremely interesting findings, not least of which was the significant gap in pay between genders.

Obvious gender pay gaps exist

Our results show that there is still an obvious pay gulf between men and women at most levels in the commercial Accounting sector. At Mid-level, women are paid 13% less than their male peers, whilst at the Senior Management level, where only 27% of respondents were women, the gap is 14%. The only level where salaries were comparable was Support. Interestingly, this was the only level at which there were more women, with only 33% of respondents being men.

This pattern also continues beyond base salary, with both bonus and benefit figures showing similar trends.

Different strokes?

One of the common arguments used to justify the existence of the gender pay gap is that women are less driven by monetary rewards than men, and thus weigh other factors more heavily when making a decision about their workplace. However, our research indicates that this is not the case with both men and women having higher salaries as one of their five key priorities. Others include:-

• Great team
• Work/life balance
• Challenge
• Location
• Progression

Closing thoughts

The gender pay gap in the Sydney Accounting sector is one of the key insights that our survey uncovered. Even when considering all the parameters in the survey, the gap still persisted across salary, bonuses and non-monetary benefits. The idea that this can easily be explained because women have different priorities simply doesn’t stand up to the statistics, with remuneration being of the same importance to both men and women throughout our survey.

For more insights into this topic, including how the genders match up from a happiness perspective, click below to request a copy of our first-ever Richard Lloyd Sydney Accounting Salary Report. Inside you’ll find a deeper investigation into the gender pay gap, as well as a range of other Sydney-specific Accounting sector insights.

For a updated and more recent version of this report, please look at Sydney Accounting Salary and Market Report Insights: The Persisting Gender Pay Gap.