Watch more of our videos on Shots!
and live on Freeview channel 276

The Owls paid female employees 21 per cent less on average than male staff last year, latest figures show, compared with 23 per cent in 2017/18.

The Blades, meanwhile, paid women 48.2 per cent less than men, which is a significantly greater disparity than the 38.3 per cent reported by the club the previous year.

Could this former Sheffield University student become new £480,000 a year Bank o...

Women earn 21 per cent less on average than men at Sheffield Wednesday (pic: Steve Ellis)

Those median hourly wages, which are less distorted by first team players’ hefty salaries than the mean figure, mean women at Sheffield United earn 52p for every pound their male counterparts receive.

Sheffield United's gender pay gap report, which is available to view online, states that the club is ‘wholly committed to providing equal opportunities and encouragement for all’ and has made ‘significant efforts’ in the last 12 months to narrow the gap.

“As is typical in a professional football club a high proportion of our pay and bonus costs are attributed to the male first team squad. This has a significant impact on the gender pay gap figures published,” it continues.

Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United are among 75 employers across the city to have published details of their gender pay gap

“We take pride in promoting equal opportunities and strive to make positive changes to close the gender pay gap whenever an opportunity arises.”

Sheffield Wednesday’s report states that it taken steps to increase the proportion of female staff and reduce the pay gap, including ensuring its recruitment adverts are ‘gender neutral’, conducting an employee equality monitoring survey and introducing company-wide training for the development of line management.

“We are committed to becoming a more diverse organisation and industry that will better represent the people in our region and other industries, where possible,” it adds.

Women at Sheffield United earn on average 48.2 per cent less than men (pic: Mike Egerton/PA Wire)

“Our club is committed to pay equality, based on merit only and never linked to gender.”

All employers with 250 or more staff have been required since 2017 to publish their gender pay gap, and the deadline for the second annual set of figures to be submitted fell earlier this month.

A pay gap does not necessarily mean women are earning less for doing the same job, which is illegal, but indicates women are less likely to occupy higher-ranking positions.

Across Sheffield, women’s median hourly wages were on average 10.5 per cent below men’s, which is marginally less than the 10.6 per cent recorded last year.

Sheffield United said it had made ‘significant efforts’ over the last 12 months to narrow the club's gender pay gap (pic: Harry Marshall/Sportimage)

The difference also fell slightly nationally, from 12 per cent to 11.9 per cent.

Some of the city’s biggest employers reduced their pay gaps, but the disparity widened at others.

The biggest gap was 48.5 per cent at Brigantia Learning Trust, whose schools include Hinde House and Yewlands Academy.

Mercia Learning Trust, whose schools include King Ecgbert, Newfield and Mercia, narrowed its pay gap significantly from 59.6 per cent in 2017/18 – which was the highest in Sheffield – to 45.6 per cent.

At the other end of the scale, Intracave Limited, which runs a number of KFC branches, paid women 34.5 per cent more on average than men, up from 18 per cent the previous year.

It was one of just nine out of 75 organisations within Sheffield to have reported at which female employees out-earned their male counterparts.

A total of 16 employers across the city – including bus operator First South Yorkshire and Sheffield International Venues, which runs FlyDSA Arena – reported a gap of one per cent or less.

Sheffield Council's pay gap remained at 8.4 per cent, but the divide at South Yorkshire Police widened from 21.7 to 26.8 per cent, and at South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue it increased from seven per cent to 10.3 per cent.

The pay gap also widened at Sheffield Hallam University, from 16.2 to 18.6 per cent, but narrowed slightly at the University of Sheffield, from 11.1 to 10.7 per cent.

GENDER PAY GAP AT BIG EMPLOYERS IN SHEFFIELD (percentage difference in median hourly wage for 2018/19 – a negative figure means women earned more on average)

Brigantia Learning: 48.5

Excel Parking Services: -1.2

First South Yorkshire: 0

Go Outdoors: 0

Irwin Mitchell: 12

Mercia Learning Trust: 45.6

Minerva Learning Trust: 21.1

NHS Sheffield Clinical Commissioning Group: 18.3

Outokumpu Stainless: 18.5

Plusnet: -6.3

Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust: 15.6

Sheffield City Council HQ: 8.4

Sheffield Forgemasters Engineering: 1.7

Sheffield Hallam University: 18.6

Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust: 10

Sheffield International Venues: 0

Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust: 9.2

Sheffield Wednesday FC: 21

South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue: 10.3

South Yorkshire Housing Association: 6

South Yorkshire Police: 26.8

Speciality Steel UK: 13.1

Steel City Schools Partnership: 10.3

Sumo Digital: 32.6

Tapton School Academy Trust: 16

The Sheffield College: 11.6

Sheffield United FC: 48.2

True North Brew Co: 8.7

University of Sheffield: 10.7

Veolia Environmental Services Sheffield: 14.7

Wales High School Academy Trust: 28.6