Shell reveals 22% gender pay gap

The company attributed the gap to the fact that there are fewer women in senior leadership positions and fewer women working in technical or trading roles that attract higher levels of pay. Shell said the pay gap also reflects wider social norms, noting that women represent around one fifth of employees globally in the oil and gas sector.

The group said it was making progress addressing this representation gap. Since 2005, the percentage of woman in senior management roles in the UK has risen to 26.8% from 12%.

Chief HR and corporate office Ronan Cassidy said: "Our drive to gender balance started years ago. Are we where we aspire to be? No. But we should recognise the significant progress we have made, especially the marked change in gender balance at recruitment and the increase in senior leadership representation, and draw confidence from that for the future in driving gender representation towards critical mass. The executive committee and I remain passionately committed to improving gender balance across all our businesses."

The UK government now requires that all companies with 250 employees or more publish gender pay gap figures on a yearly basis.

Figures released by the Office for National Statistics earlier this month showed the median UK gender pay gap was 9.1% for the year to April for full-time workers, down from 9.4% for the previous 12 months.