FEMALE spies are furious after uncovering top-secret intelligence — they are paid almost ten per cent less than male colleagues.

Senior spooks fear the revelation could damage their drive to entice more young women into joining their agencies.

2 Miss Moneypenny could be earning almost 10 per cent less than her male colleagues Credit: Rex Features

About a third of people working at MI5, MI6 and the GCHQ listening centre are women. But the gender pay gap means a woman intelligence analyst gets £27,000 compared to a male colleague’s £30,000.

Pay structures within Britain’s secret security world vary considerably and are complicated.

But bosses of the three main spy organisations who hold the rank of director general, earn about £200,000 a year.

Trainee spies or backroom staff can start at £25,000. Jacqui Chard, a deputy director at the National Cyber Security Centre, said: “We still exhibit a gender pay gap.”

The spy world is the latest sector to be engulfed by a row over gender pay gaps, following revelations at the BBC, teaching unions and the TUC.

With only 35 per cent or so across the whole organisation closing that gender pay gap becomes a challenge Jacqui Chard, National Cyber Security Centre

Females work in the same fields as men in roles such as surveillance officers, where they track foreign spies. Women are also employed as intelligence officers and as agent handlers.

In this role they run a number of agents who may be members of terrorists groups or foreign governments and who supply Britain with intelligence.

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Ms Chard, who previously worked at GCHQ, added: “We have equal opportunities throughout the system. One of the challenges is the number of women in the organisation.

“With only 35 per cent or so across the whole organisation closing that gender pay gap becomes a challenge.”

The issue of the gender pay gap emerged during a BBC Radio 4 programme called “Women in Intelligence and Cyber Security”.

2 Female spies make up a a third of those at MI5, MI6 and the GCHQ listening centre Credit: Alamy

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