SOME of Swindon’s top employers have revealed shocking gender pay gaps of almost 30 per cent.

Companies with more than 250 employees have a legal obligation to publish their data on the difference in average pay for men and women by April 4.

Data from Nationwide Building society, which has 18,000 employees nationwide and its HQ in Swindon, shows that women’s mean hourly wage is 29 per cent lower at the company than that of male employees.

A spokesman for Nationwide said: “Our gender pay gap is a function of having more women than men in lower paid roles, such as within branches, and more men than women in higher paid roles, something which is seen across the wider financial services sector.”

Large financial services employer in Swindon, Zurich, recorded a 27 per cent pay gap and a 47 percent bonus pay gap.

Zurich’s UK CEO Tulsi Naidu said: “Across financial services and in insurance specifically, women are under-represented in senior UK leadership roles and in more highly paid technical and specialist roles such as actuarial and underwriting.”

“We also see a greater proportion of women choosing to work part-time and taking career breaks – this also affects our gap results.”

WH Smith and nPower, both headquartered in Swindon, had a 20 and 19 per cent pay gap respectively, with women’s bonus pay at the stationery retail outlet a staggering 87.9 per cent lower than men. This was despite the company having more women in the top 25 per cent pay bracket than men.

Other organisations based in Swindon managed to close and even reverse the gap completely.

Data from English Heritage reveals the median pay for women was 2.3 per cent higher, and only 10 per cent lower using the mean.

Women even receive more bonus pay than men at the organisation.

The data shows bonus pay for women was 33.6 per cent higher than men and a higher proportion of women are in the top quartile pay bracket than men.

Commenting on the figures, MP for Swindon North Justin Tomlinson said: “The publishing of data is helping to shine a light on disparities in the roles men and women hold in the workplace. The data doesn’t show the difference in pay for men and women doing the same job but it does highlight the fact that men earn significantly more and tend to hold an above average number of senior, high-paid roles.”

Mr Tomlinson also outlined the ways government is doing more to help women remain in senior positions, such as Shared Parental Leave which enables working parents to share up to 37 weeks of paid maternity leave in the first year of a child’s life.

MP for Swindon South Robert Buckland said: “The gender pay gap for full-time employees is at a record low, and FTSE 100 boards now have more than 25 per cent women, with female employment at a record high of 70.9 per cent. There is more to do, which is why we have announced £5m to help women return to work after time out for caring and have extended free and tax free childcare too.”

The gender pay gap is the difference in the average pay for men and women across the whole company and not the difference in pay for individuals doing the same job.

Businesses say the difference is because more men are in higher paid roles than women.