‘Hugely disappointing’ research shows widening gender pay gap in travel

C&M Travel Recruitment has shared “hugely disappointing” research suggesting the industry’s gender pay gap has widened for the second consecutive year, reaching the biggest gap for nearly a decade.

 

On average, women working in travel took home nearly 22% less than male colleagues last year, compared with gaps of nearly 14% in 2024 and 11% in 2023.

The 2025 pay gap is the biggest since 2016, when the difference stood at more than 24%.

 

C&M Travel Recruitment co-owner and managing director Barbara Kolosinska said: “We’ve been conducting these travel industry gender pay gap reports for more than a decade now, and we set out with the hope that the gap would be narrowed – or even eliminated – quickly.

 

“To see that the gap has actually widened for the second year in a row is hugely disappointing.”

 

The pay gap stood at £8,496 last year, up from £5,238 in 2024 and £3,678 in 2023, with women earning an average of £34,547 (down from £35,245 in 2024) while men received £43,043 (up from £40,483 in 2024).

 

C&M Travel Recruitment said the overall gap was “skewed due to two key factors”, namely that women took the vast majority of lower-paid roles last year, while men took most of the highest salaried positions.

 

For “lower-paid” roles (up to £29,999) women outearned men by nearly 1% (£234). 

 

However, women were placed in 78% of travel’s lowest paying roles last year – up from 69% in 2024 and over 68% in 2023.

 

In contrast, men took 61% of the highest-earning travel roles (paying £60,000 and above), which was up marginally on 2024 and 3% up on 2023.

 

The gender wage gap at the top of the industry stood at nearly 8%, with men taking home around £5,979 more than women last year.
 
Women were placed in almost 64% of roles paying between £30,000 and £39,999 (down from 70% in 2024 and nearly 68% in 2023), with men earning an average of about 2% or £747 more than women. This was a slight rise on 2024.

 

The gap was bigger at the £40,000-plus level, with men taking nearly 55% of all roles (up from about 44% in 2024 and 33% in 2023). The pay gap stood at more than 12% last year, with men outearning women by an average of £7,040.

 

Overall, women continued to take most new jobs in the travel industry last year (more than 63%), but the total was down from 2024 (66%), 2023 (68%) and 2022 (nearly 71%).

 

Kolosinska said: “We should stress that at most levels of our industry, we have not seen any evidence of a wide pay gap between male and female colleagues working alongside each other in comparable roles.

 

“The issue is a broader one, in that women are increasingly being placed in the majority of the travel industry’s lowest paying jobs, while men are being awarded more and more of the top positions in our industry.

 

“There are a number of reasons for this – including more women than men opting to take career gaps to start a family – but it is still very disheartening to see that women are not progressing to the top of travel at the same rate as men.

 

“The travel industry is an incredibly attractive and inclusive place to work, but we still have more to do if we are to eliminate this gender gap.

 

“If the top of our industry is to represent that overall inclusivity that we cherish, then we need to create clearer career progression opportunities for our female workers and encourage them to push for the top jobs in our sector.”