King’s is one of the worst UK unis for gender pay equality

Female staff at King’s are earning on average nearly £10,000 less than their male counterparts according to a new report.

The University and College Union (UCU) has ranked King’s as the fourth worst university in the UK for pay equality.

The only other universities coming out worse in the rankings are LSE, Liverpool Hope University and St. George’s.

The report found there is an average gap of £9,703 between all male and female academic staff’s pay, and a £5,864 gap between male and female professors. This comes as a blow, as other University of London universities such as Royal Holloway and Queen Mary have fared much better in the rankings.

The report found that among all universities which data was obtained from, the gender pay gap amounts to a shortfall of £6,103 per year for each female academic. The total salary spend on female academics is £1.3 billion less than male academics. It was also found that this pay gap was larger at Russell Group institutions.

It would seem the results of this report reflect a great level of hypocrisy on the part of KCL: last year a mural was put up in the King’s building celebrating the institution’s female academics.

Tibby Newbound, a 2nd Year English and French student said: “If they can celebrate past female academics like Virginia Woolf as part of the alumni of King’s then they can pay their academics the same wage. It’s misleading in a way, if they can attribute the celebration of female academics to their ‘image’ as a selling point, then it doesn’t quite work.”

Breaking the glass ceiling takes more than simply claiming to celebrate the women of the university. The figures have to add up too.

The Tab has reached out to King’s College London for a statement.