Female employees at Jupiter earn 38 per cent less per hour than their male counterparts it has revealed, as its chief executive voiced disappointment at the slow progress at the firm.
The asset manager's pay gap, which is based on a mean average, i.e. the sum of all hourly pay figures divided by the people being paid, compares with a 34 per cent average for the financial services industry as measured by PWC in its Women in Work index 2017.
Jupiter also reported a 25 per cent gap in its median hourly rate, which compares the mid-level hourly rate of its male and female workforce.
In February it emerged Barclays has a gender pay gap of 43.5 per cent, which was branded "shocking" by the chair of the Treasury select committee, Nicky Morgan, who said the gap needed to be addressed.
Jupiter's chief executive Maarten Slendebroek said he was disappointed at the findings, which were published to comply with new regulations forcing employers with 250 or more staff to report their gender pay gap to the government for the first time this year.
He stated in the report: "As an employee, shareholder and client, you will share my disappointment that our company, in line with much of the broader asset management industry, is not further along the road to eliminating this unwelcome gap in gender pay.
"Yet I know we can, and must do better.
"We have far too few female employees working at senior levels in our fund management and sales teams – the key reason behind the gender pay gap.
"Engaging with the industry on this structural issue, we are committed to increasing the number of female employees in these two areas of our business, and supporting their progression to senior roles."
Jupiter stated the figures were skewed by the number of highly paid male fund managers and sales employees.
Andy Robinson, the firm's head of HR, said: "We reward employees equally for doing equivalent jobs at the same level of performance, regardless of gender. It is the structure of our workforce that is the primary driver in the disparity in pay."
Under the government's gender pay gap regulations, employers have to also report the quartile pay gap found in each of four pay bands and the proportion of male and female employees receiving bonuses in the year, as well as the gap in bonus payments made.
At Jupiter all higher pay brackets were dominated by men, with only the lowest tier seeing an equal split of 50: 50.
The highest bracket was filled with 76 per cent men and the upper middle bracket with 72 per cent. In the lower middle band, 61 per cent of positions were held by men.
Bonus payments at Jupiter, meanwhile, saw a huge gap as male staff raked in 84 per cent more in bonuses on average than their female counterparts.
On a median basis, the mid level bonuses paid to women were 52 per cent lower than those paid to men.
However, while 91 per cent of men received a bonus, 92 per cent of women were handed one too.
A spokesman for Jupiter said: "We recognise that on a mean basis our bonus pay gap of 84 per cent is significant and has been skewed by a handful of senior male fund managers and sales employees.
"Excluding these departments gives a bonus pay gap of 40 per cent and 29 per cent on a mean and median basis, respectively.
"While these figures are still significant, we expect them to gradually decline as we recruit and develop senior female talent across the business."
Anna Sofat, owner of Addidi Wealth, said she wanted to see big changes going forward and questioned whether firms were incentivised enough to significantly reduce the gender pay gap.
She said: "I would like us to come to a point where the pay gap is far below 20 per cent, more like under 10 per cent.
"We need to see a similar incentive to that raised by the Davies report [on the representation of women on FTSE 100 boards] so that by 2020 the companies have started to reduce it by say a third each year.
"I would also like the pay gap to become one of those environmental, social and governance standards indicators."
On Jupiter specifically, she said: "If Jupiter as a company are taking this seriously they need to look at their recruitment, retention, and and reward structures and how they are actually going to to do something to change that."
carmen.reichman@ft.com
