Women across the finance field still earn less than men, a new survey confirms

The gender pay gap between women in the finance industry and their male counterparts persists, according to a recent survey, with the starkest divide among middle-management jobs.

Financial services firm Spendesk surveyed 800 financial professionals at small and medium-sized companies in the US and Europe in April and May for its CFO Salary Benchmark report. According to the results, men earned roughly 13% more than women overall in finance roles—about $120,000 compared to women’s average salary of about $105,000.

The discrepancy is more pronounced in lower-ranking jobs like finance manager, Spendesk found, where women’s average salary was about $55,000, compared to the men’s average of about $60,000.

However, the more senior the role, the smaller the pay gap; across the US and Europe, women CFOs earned an average salary of about $135,000, compared to male CFOs who averaged about $140,000.

Finance salaries in the US rose about 16% YoY, to about $220,000 the survey found, and US finance pros are still paid considerably more than their European counterparts, although some countries are beginning to catch up. The average salary for a German CFO was up about 21% from the year prior, to ~$160,000, and in France the increase was about 15%, to roughly $105,000.—KL