Women in England with postgraduate degrees still earn less than men with only bachelor’s degrees, while salaries for graduate men are growing at a faster pace than for their female peers, according to the latest official data on graduate earnings.

The figures from the Department for Education’s graduate labour market statistics show that women with postgraduates degrees, including master’s degrees and doctorates, earn a median pay of £37,000 a year. But men with first degrees earned an average of £38,500 in 2018, while men holding postgraduate degrees were paid £43,000.

The latest figures show that the “graduate premium” in pay continues to hold up, with graduates living in England earning about £10,000 more on average than non-graduates, as in previous years.

Graduates of all ages up to 64 earned a median salary of £34,000, while non-graduates earned just £24,000 despite their earnings rising at a faster rate since 2008. Those with postgraduate degrees did even better, earning £40,000.

But the headline figures obscured the continued struggle for young graduates in the labour market, especially women, since the global financial crisis 10 years ago. While employment rates are higher than in previous years for both men and women, male graduates and the occupations they join have benefited far more from the slow recovery in pay.

The DfE’s statisticians said that while the gender pay gap among non-graduates has remained stable, since 2016 the median pay for graduate men has risen by £1,500 more than for women, widening the existing graduate gender pay gap.

Among graduates aged under 30, the gender pay gap also widened. In 2009 both male and female graduates earned £24,000. But since then the median earnings for women have barely changed, rising to £24,500 in 2018, while those of men increased to £28,000, meaning that after inflation women graduates in 2018 earned substantially less than their counterparts a decade ago.

“The gaps between males and females, however, may to some extent reflect differences in working patterns between the two genders,” the DfE’s statisticians noted.

The figures on graduate pay mirror the company-level results of the government’s gender pay surveys, with this year’s results showing that a quarter of companies and public sector bodies have a pay gap of more than 20% in favour of men.

Black graduates across all age groups were the lowest paid, with median earnings of £25,500 compared with the median of £35,000 for white graduates. And while black graduates had employment rates close to those of white and Asian graduates, far fewer were likely to be employed in “high skilled” occupations.

Of those aged under 30, black graduates averaged earnings of £22,000 as white graduates earned £26,000 a year.

Chris Skidmore, the universities minister, said that while he was “delighted” that the graduate pay premium continued to reward those who went on to higher education, he remained concerned by the persistent gaps highlighted by the data.

“This government is clear that all graduates, no matter their gender, race or background, should be benefiting from our world-class universities and there is clearly much further to go to improve the race and gender pay gap,” Skidmore said.

The Office for Students, the higher education regulator for England, has been tasked with narrowing the gaps in outcomes between different groups both during and after university.

The figures also throw up an interesting quirk: graduates with first class degrees earn less than those with second class degrees, 2:1s or 2:2s. The DfE data for all workers showed those with first class degrees earned an average of £32,000, while those with 2:1s earned £33,500, and those with 2:2s on £35,000.

One explanation might be that graduates with first class degrees are more likely to enter high-status but lower-paid sectors such as academia or the civil service.

But a first class degree seems to help in the early stage of a graduate’s career: up to the age of 30, those with top honours earned £27,000 a year, while those with 2:2s averaged £24,000.

Non-graduates aged 30 and under earned £21,000, with their pay growing at a faster rate than graduates since 2017, despite fewer being in jobs classed as “high skilled”.