Increase in female professors welcome, but rise in gender pay gap real problem for the sector, says UCU

Despite the good news on the increase in female professors, the gender pay gap was wider in 2007-08, at 13.9% in men's favour, than in the previous year, when it was 13.7%. UCU said that the whole sector had to be prepared to show real commitment to closing the gap.

UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: 'The increase in proportion of female professors is good news for higher education. However, until everyone in the sector is prepared to really tackle the gender pay gap, we will remain some way from gender equality. For years we have heard enlightened rhetoric in higher education about the issue of unfair pay for women. Sadly there are still wide gaps in our institutions today with a worrying year-on-year rise in the overall gender pay gap.

'There is not yet enough being done to root out and tackle the problem. We would like to see mandatory equal pay audits as a start to unearthing out the scale of the problem and then a concerted effort by institutions to work with us and consider necessary remedial action to close the pay gap.'

The union was responding to Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) figures released on 30 March which revealed that 18.7% of professors are female, up from 17.5% in 2006-07. The proportion of female academic staff in all grades has increased over the same period, from 42.3% in 2006-07 to 42.6% in 2007-08. HESA data also indicates a UK gender pay gap of 13.9% in favour of male academics for 2007-08, a rise on a gender pay gap of 13.7% in 2006-07.

• Full details of today's HESA figures can be found on the HESA website