An employment law specialist has called for pay gap reporting against all protected characteristics following the BBC’s announcement today of those earning over £150,000 per year.

The BBC is required to publish the figures under the terms of its royal charter and the figure of £150,000 or more was set by Theresa May when she became prime minister last year.

The figures for the 96 people who earn more than £150,000 show that only 32 are women and only 11 are non-white.

However, the top 10 highest earners contained no BAME people at all and only 2 women.

Kiran Daurka, partner in the employment law team at Leigh Day, said:

“What we see is the top-paid jobs are dominated by white men, as is true of many organisations across the country. While it is encouraging that the BBC figures have provoked debate on the inequality of pay between men and women what we also want people to be asking is where are the people from other minority groups? Where are the people from ethnic minority backgrounds? Where are the older women? Where are the people with disabilities?

“In order to address systemic inequality on a holistic basis, there needs to be pay gap reporting against all protected characteristics so that employers can identify the barriers preventing people from certain groups progressing to high-paid roles.

“The glass ceiling is a barrier to women, people of colour and disabled people.”