Top earning women graduates are paid almost 18 per cent less than men five years after leaving university, research revealed yesterday.

Their wages are £31,000 on average across a range of professions – £6,500 lower than men graduates who finished their degree courses at the same time.

The findings from the Department for Education’s new Longitudinal Education Outcomes dataset will renew concerns about a gender wage gap. The LEO statistics are the first of their kind to track higher education leavers as they move to the workplace, assessing their wages according to gender.

Top earning women graduates are paid almost 18 per cent less than men five years after leaving university, according to a new report

They analyse 236,630 men and women who graduated in 2008/9 over five years, dividing their earnings into lower, median and upper levels.

The report finds that one year after graduation, both sexes earn the same on average – £11,500 – in the lowest wage band. Men receive £1,000 more in the middle earning bracket. They earn £17,500 while women earn £16,500 on average.

In the top wage range, men earn £24,500 a year after graduation – £2,000 more than women who earn £22,500. The gap increases with each year of graduation but is particularly noticeable at the upper quartile’.

By year three, high earning women earn almost 15 per cent less – £26,500 versus men’s £31,000. After five years, the gap extends further still, with women in the top wage band earning £31,000 and men, £37,500. By this stage, the lowest earning men are also overtaking women – £20,000 compared to their female counterparts’ £17,500.

The report found that one year after graduation, both sexes earn the same on average – £11,500 – in the lowest wage band. Men receive £1,000 more in the middle earning bracket. They earn £17,500 while women earn £16,500 on average (stock photo)

The report says: ‘At each of one, three and five years after graduation, male median earnings are greater than female median earnings.’

It stresses that ‘some part of these variations will be due to the different incidences of part-time work by sex’. ‘These differences increase with age of worker, which may explain some of the increasing gap in earnings between males and females,’ the report adds.

Research from business advice group Korn Ferry Hay this week revealed men are still paid vastly more than women across many jobs and regions. The biggest gaps are seen at the best-paid levels of industry such as technology and oil and gas. The gap was 34 per cent in the East Midlands, followed by 30 per cent in the South East.

A Government spokesman said: ‘No woman should be held back just because of her gender. We now have the lowest gender pay gap on record, and we are working to get more women into the top jobs at our biggest companies.

‘But we know there’s more to do – that’s why we are requiring employers to publish their gender pay and gender bonus gap for the first time from April and we are working to get more girls studying science, technology, engineering and maths subjects so that they get into more lucrative professions when they are older.’