Yorkshire and the Humber has moved up two places to ninth in the regional Women in Work Index.

The report by PwC - which recently announced it would be moving into the One City Park development in Bradford, assesses progress made towards achieving gender equality at work across 33 OECD countries, as well as across the UK’s 12 regions and nations.

This improvement was driven by an increase in the proportion of working age women in employment in the region, alongside a decrease in the gap in the male and female labour force participation.

The report shows that Yorkshire’s gender pay gap has only seen a slight decrease year on year from 15.9 per cent in 2021 to 15.5 per cent in 2022, however the region is still behind the UK’s overall pay gap of 14.5 per cent as well as the OECD average pay gap of 13.5 per cent. 

Looking deeper into the data, Yorkshire has climbed from eighth to sixth in the regional Index for female participation rate, which is the proportion of women of working age (15 to 64) who either have a job or are seeking work.

When measured on the gap in the male and female labour force, the region has also moved up seven places in the rankings, from 12th to fifth best performing.

Susie Holmes, Place & Purpose Lead and Financial Services Leader for the North, said: "The Women in Work Index is a crucial piece of research and, as a woman working and living in Yorkshire, it’s fantastic to see the improvement from the region in this year’s rankings. It’s positive to see Yorkshire closing the gap between men and women in the workforce, as well as improving the overall number of women in employment, however there is still work to be done around addressing the gender pay gap.

“It's always been difficult for the North as a region to close the gap with other areas of the UK due to the prominence of typically male dominated industries such as manufacturing and STEM fields, but there are a number of incredible initiatives across the North, like She Leads for Legacy and TechSheCan, that are doing fantastic work in bringing businesses and policy makers together, and highlighting the issues facing gender pay disparity. We're extremely proud to support important programmes like these, alongside our own gender inclusion networks in the North, to help future proof careers for women."