Equal pay for male and female senior executives in Britain is almost 100 years away, new research showed yesterday.

Male executives are paid over £10,000 (€11,260) more than their female counterparts and the gap has widened over the past year, according to the research by the Chartered Management Institute.

A study of almost 35,000 executives showed a gender gap of £10,546 last year. However, at junior executive level, women earned marginally more than men.

Overall, wages for women executives are increasing faster than those of men, but at the current rate if will take 98 years for salaries to be equal, the CMI said.

Male executives earned an average of £42,441 compared with £31,895 for women, although men’s pay increased by 2.3 per cent in the past year compared with 2.8 per cent for women.

CMI director of policy and research Petra Wilton said: “While CMI is delighted that junior female executives have caught up with males at the same level, this year’s salary survey demonstrates, yet again, that businesses are contributing to the persistent gender pay gap and alienating top female employees by continuing to pay men and women unequally. “This kind of bad management is damaging UK businesses and must be addressed.

“It is the responsibility of every executive, organisation and the government to help bring about change. Diversity shouldn’t be seen as something that has to be accommodated, but something that must be celebrated.”

Wilton urged the government “to scrutinise organisational pay, demand more transparency from companies on pay bandings and publicly expose organisations found guilty of fuelling the gender pay gap.”