City heavyweight Eversheds Sutherland has slightly improved its gender pay gap, with male employees and partners earning 57.6% more on average than women at the firm.

According to figures published today, Eversheds Sutherland’s mean gender pay gap for employees dipped from 20.2% in 2019 to 19.1% in 2020. The figure reflects the average hourly pay of all female staff compared with male staff.

The firm’s overall pay gap – which includes partners – remained roughly the same at 57.6%. For partners and lawyers alone, the gap widened slighted to 25.1% and 8.7% respectively. 

‘The overall employee position shows a positive trend with the mean and median figures reducing year on year,' the firm said. 'When we look specifically at the lawyer population, there has been a slight increase in the mean and median figures since last year. This reflects turnover in the reporting period with more senior male hires being recruited.'

As of 5 April 2020, Eversheds Sutherland had 293 partners in the UK; 28% were women.

Meanwhile the firm's overall ethnicity pay gap has risen from 33.7% to 39.3%. The biggest discrepancy was among black employees, who were paid 34.1% less on average than white staff.

Elsewhere in the City, gender pay gap progress has stalled, with Hogan Lovells’ gender pay for employees gap widening to over 30%, driven up by bonuses for lawyers. Meanwhile, Clyde & Co has published a firm-wide gender pay cap of is 57.5%, up from 56.8% in 2019 and earlier this year, Linklaters revealed that its gender and ethnicity pay gaps had widened slightly, with the most significant cause of pay discrepancies still unchanged.