Salaries vary widely, but there’s one truth that’s still sadly universal: women get paid less for the same work. How does that play out for IT workers in Australia’s biggest companies?
Workers picture from Shutterstock
Comparison site Finder.com.au analysed salary data for 189 Australian companies. Across those firms, male salaries ranged from $30,942 (at Flight Centre) to $252,000 (at Macquarie University), while female salaries ranged from $26,145 (at Bankwest) to $200,000 (at Santos).
Here are the salary ranges and gender breakdowns for the IT companies listed in the table. (Of course, IT roles also exist in virtually every large organisation, so these aren’t your only options.)
| Company | % workforce female |
Average female salary range |
% workforce male |
Average male salary range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IBM | 24 | $52,851-$78,969 | 76 | $62,037-$125,779 |
| Hewlett-Packard | 23 | $42,894-$71,637 | 77 | $64,111-$127,743 |
| Accenture | 21 | $57,154-$101,810 | 79 | $58,116-$118,220 |
| Oracle | 36 | $101,250 | 64 | $71,000-$120,043 |
| CSC | 33 | $67,438-$124,800 | 67 | $63,996-$136,190 |
| NEC Australia | 5 | N/A | 95 | $52,072-$112,649 |
| Dell | 17 | $139,000 | 83 | $50,335-$113,527 |
Salaries in IT roles are on the rise, so don’t be afraid to ask for what you’re worth. Hit the link for the full table.
Australian Workplace Satisfaction & Average Annual Salary Analysis [Finder]
Comments
14 responses to “What Men And Woman Actually Get Paid At Australia’s Biggest Companies”
This article has nothing to do with the often quoted “women get paid less for the same work”.
This article points out that “women get paid less for the same company” but has no information regarding the positions held at the company.
Yeah, the “sadly universal truth” isn’t supported by the data you cite. Even if you took the data as being a like for like comparison, it still wouldn’t support your claim – as Dell has women streeting the men in salary, and Oracle has them earning in between the high and lows of the male salaries, as does CSC.
My experience (emphasis on MY) has never been that female employees are paid less for doing the same job. My employer, for example, sizes a role before it’s advertised, which determines the salary range, and the successful candidate is then appointed at that level/salary.
I’d be interested to know whether those companies with lower ranges for female staff are paying those staff less for the same role or whether the differences are down to the mix of roles held by women v. men and/or the level of experience of the incumbents.
Or the hours of work expected (overtime rolled in, etc).
I work for a IT reseller. The women here would definitely be paid less on average, but that’s because our receptionist, office manager, marketing team, vendor manager, etc are women. Our CEO, MD, solution architects, presales/delivery team, etc are men. The men have higher paying roles, so of course they’re paid more.
These are all brilliant points.
What we are trying to point out to you Angus, concerning the statement “women get paid less for the same work” is…
We are NOT trying to claim that it is false.
We are trying to point out that this post does not support the claim.
We are trying to point out that this post supports the idea that women get paid less because they work lower-tier jobs.
We are NOT trying to claim that the idea that women get paid less because they work lower-tier jobs is fair and equitable.
Working for one of the companies above (guess which :p) I’ve had the pleasure of working with about 7 females directly, and they all got paid more than me. The reason being is they were in higher tiered positions than me.
Your “universal truth” isn’t supported by this article, just your lack of data analysis skills.
Not in my experience. I was in a support team (of 4) where the woman was paid more than me, but did less than half the amount of work. Explain that :P.
Why was she paid more? Why was she doing less work? Unfortunately this happens in all places, where you come across people who manage to opt out of many of their duties, but are excellent sweet talkers and manage to get paid more, or land better job roles. I’ve had this with both women and men in my different workplaces. Even though your situation isn’t ideal, and shouldn’t be occuring, I doubt that it’s because she’s a woman that it’s occuring, and more so that it’s her individual traits causing this issue. Having these discussions about why men are paid on average more, isn’t about pitting men against women, and it isn’t about gaining power over men. The fact that individual situations like yours occur, and are immediately put down to the sex of the individual shows the discrimination that certain groups of people face. It’s not saying all men are bad, and all women are good, or vise versa. Of course there are going to be manipulative women that get paid more, for doing less…just as there are men that do that. It’s about an overall average that men are being paid more than women, and why this occurs. It’s not about damning men or women, but about the overall view of society as a whole (this includes men and women) and their views on why there is still such a large pay gap between males and females.
Just so you know, women DO get paid less for the same work in Australia. That’s an easily verifiable fact…
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/women-managers-paid-up-to-45-less-than-their-male-peers-new-data-20150217-13gx8t.html
The data in this article doesn’t prove that point. And yes, some of you can probably point out individual cases or departments where that isn’t the case. But overall, it’s a simple and sad fact.
There is no data in that article. Just “results” provided by Workplace Gender Equity Agency. Sounds like an agency that has a vested interest in finding problems that it will be paid to solve.
Even the article gives you the reason for the discrepancy.
Don’t want such little pay? Pick a higher paying career.
It’s illegal to pay people differently based on their gender. Has been for quite some time now. Find a legitimate case, take it to the authorities and have the company prosecuted. It’s a pretty simple way to “make positive change”
Why are women gravitating to roles that “the market typically assesses as being of lower value”? Is it because they are not as educated as men? Are they less intelligent than men? Are they spending more time than men on trying to fit into other aspects that society deems important to women? Are they getting knocked back from higher paying roles? Discrimination is still rampant in the workplace, whether people like to admit it or not. One form of this discrimination is against females in higher paid positions – females still occupy less than 5% of executive roles. So, why is this? I know this article doesn’t address whether males and females are really getting paid different amounts for the same job, however the data suggests that regardless, on average women are still being paid less. So, questions should then be asked as to why women are not ‘gravitating’ towards these higher roles, or is it more accurate to say that they are not being encouraged or accepted into these roles?
It’s not discrimination unless someone doesn’t get a role based on something they can’t change.
If men hold 95% of executive positions (I’d need so see some solid stats on that given the structure of my company being composed of mostly women…) is that because 95% of reasonable applicants are men? So… if women want to be in executive positions, they need to apply themselves, gain the qualifications and experience, and move up the ranks. There’s no impediment other than themselves. End of story.
This is true, that it doesn’t actually state what the job roles are, and what they entail. Even if it did state this information and it turned out that men were in higher paying roles, I’d be inclined to ask why aren’t there more females in the higher paying roles? It’s not because there aren’t females that are qualified to do these roles. I suspect it has a lot more to do with the notion that males are more educated, intelligent and more authoritative than females. The assumption that females have a priority to be homemakers, and subsequent discrimination is also rife in the workforce still. So while your point that the job duties aren’t specified is relevant, it doesn’t mean we should stop asking the question as to why males on average are being paid more than females, whether it’s because they are actually occupying a higher percentage of better paid jobs, or they are getting paid more to complete the same duties.