Women working at the Wellcome Trust earn a median 21 percent less than their male colleagues, according to the Guardian. It notes that that is above the national median pay gap of 18.1 percent.
The Wellcome Trust, the UK's largest charity and funder of biomedical research, has made its data public following the implementation of new government rules that require organizations that employ more than 250 people to release their pay figures by gender, the paper adds.
Women make up the majority, 64 percent, of the Wellcome Trust's workforce, but they are underrepresented among the higher echelons of the charity. That, the Guardian says, is where the pay imbalance is greatest and is particularly affected by bonuses. Performance bonuses are paid to senior members of the investment team that manages the charity's portfolio, all of whom are men.
Jeremy Farrar, the charity's director, tells the Guardian that the data "make uncomfortable reading. An organization has to face up to uncomfortable things and say 'we're not where we want to be and we want to change that.'" He adds that the Wellcome Trust would be starting gender bias training, testing new recruitment practices, and would strive to have a gender-balanced leadership team.