Female freelancers being paid less

£4,000 difference

In the creative industries, men command an average day ray of £319, £15 higher than women’s, according to research by jobs platform YunoJuno. It found women take higher rates across strategy and client service roles, but men’s rates can be as much as £50 a day higher across other disciplines including creative, design, UX and film.

Gender-based wage discrimination in traditional business settings can be insidious because women who start out being paid less may be continuously offered less competitive raises or salaries when they change jobs. But many female entrepreneurs in creative fields—perhaps even those who think that owning their own business shelters from such bias—are actually seeing a similar disparity play out in a different way.

These women still have to set their job rates or negotiate project fees, and many feel that they’re treated differently and afforded less bargaining power than men. As a result, the pay gap among self-employed female creatives is actually far worse. And many may not even be aware of it.

The view from below the typical glass ceiling looks like this: Women doing comparable work still make about 24% less than men, or 76 cents for every dollar, according to PayScale, a data analytics company that crunches salary information. That actual wage gap varies slightly by industry. It actually goes up in fields like scientific and tech services (25%) and finance and insurance (29%).