The gender pay gap has narrowed as women have seen bigger pay increases in 2010, official figures show.

It shrunk to a 10.2% gap between men and women’s median pay – the closest since figures started in 1997, the Office for National Statistics said.

A brake on wage rises for UK workers meant gross annual earnings for full-time employees saw annual rises of just 0.3% in April 2010, the ONS also said.

Pay rises were highest in London and lowest in Northern Ireland.

Taking a median average, gross annual earnings for full-time employees in April 2010 were up slightly compared with a year earlier to £25,900.
Pay gap

The ONS data shows that, in April, the UK workforce was made up of 12.7 million men and 12.3 million women.

However, work patterns were vastly different between the sexes. Some 88% of men worked full-time, but only 58% of women worked full-time.

Women tended to have lower hourly rates of pay in general, the figures show, but overall the gender pay gap has narrowed.

That is mainly because full-time men’s median earnings were up 1.3% to £538 a week, but for women working full-time the figure rose by 3.1% to £439.

Using the median average, the gender pay difference narrowed from 12.2% to 10.2%, the biggest drop since the measure began in 1997.