Salary gaps… never thought they were so wide!

[Donotfitin]

I always thought our marriage was fairly uncommon in terms of me being the main breadwinner and making 2x-3x as much as my husband

However apparently the average gap is £32k and apparently 23% of women are the main breadwinners!

So my husband was right after all!

AiBU for veins so surprised?

I'm the main breadwinner in our home. I am a professional female with a child and work part time. My husband isn't a low earner either, he's a high rate tax payer.

A lot has to do with who goes part time to look after children. We are fairly uncommon in that because my employer flat refused to let me go part time after baby, my husband applied to and was successful.
While he still earns a good salary, my total package is now £120K above his (salary differential about £60K.) This is unlikely to have happened if I’d gone part time, or had a husband who wasn’t picking up the home stuff.

or your stats aren't very reliable!

Come on, you must see that that would be a huge proportion of people either not working at all or working about 4 hours a week!

While I can see your point about if one/both couples are very high earning, £32k isn't as much of a difference compared to low/average earners, only 4-9% of the UK earn over £100,000 so that can't account for it, either. In fact some reports say only 12% of the population earn over £50k Income tax explained | IFS Taxlab

Where did you get the £32k difference figure from, exactly?

@YorkStoriesi work in cybersecurity Only around 17–18% of cybersecurity professionals in the UK and US are female ad in the U.K. the percentage has been declining over the last 5 years. I go to a few conventions and industry events and it’s stark how imbalanced the mix of men and women is!

I think if I worked full-time then in our household we would have about an 8k gap in favour of my husband, but it's more than that right now as I work 0.8FTE. I have no idea honestly how many of my friends out earn their husbands, but I am sure some of them do, it's just not a topic that ever comes up for discussion.

A study from nationwide https://metro.co.uk/2026/02/03/average-salary-difference-causes-conflicts-couples-26689035/#:~:text=Courtney%2520Pochin,reached%2520an%2520astonishing%2520%C2%A332%252C000.

I earn 52k, dh earns 73k…same sector, same company, same dept…different roles 🤣

Why would they be similar. My husband earns 75K I earn 45K neither went to Uni
Most of my friends if not all work full-time but don't earn as much as their husbands

There’s also a lot less acceptance of men leaving work early to do drop offs.

I’m sure this wasn’t the case for your ExH as you’d presumably know, but every time DH leaves early or works from home for childcare reasons, it is made clear to him that it’s a one-off and he is burning through goodwill (he does plenty of drop offs so I have no reason to disbelieve him).

I actually earn double what he does, in a more demanding role, but a) my workplace is ten minutes walk from DS’s school, his is an hour away and b) I work in healthcare where flexibility is much more accepted as long as you aren’t doing anything patient-facing and the work is all getting done.

@Tigerbalmshark

There’s also a lot less acceptance of men leaving work early to do drop offs.

Hmmm. That may be true in some industries (construction, for example) but 90% of the time I think it's a cover story.

In white collar industries like consulting/finance etc it's become very much more tolerated that people of both sexes sometimes have to incorporate caring responsibilities. I have several male colleagues who make a point of collecting their kids every day.

And honestly men need to push at it. We've been doing it for decades and enduring being thought of as less ambitious/flaky/about to step of the ladder to have more babies. About time they had their turn. If we're ever going to get to proper parity in sharing the domestic load people need to challenge attitudes like this.

That’s less than 1 in 4…. Why are you so shocked that few women are breadwinners? Women make up the majority of new graduates, new doctors, new dentists. Much of that 23% will be young members of those cohorts.

Not really. Women are also punished for doing pick ups etc and skipped over for promotion, hired less, careers stalled. But we do it because someone has to get the kids not because employers are happy for us to do it.

You are surprised to learn that 77% of women earn less than men?

My take home last year was c.8 times that of my DH who works full time. Quite common in my industry to have one very high earner and one average earner. I guess men still tend to be the higher earner, but I'm not at all unusual in being a woman and the higher earner.

I imagine it's law, finance, consulting etc skewing the figures to get to the £32k average gap.

I earn £50k more than my DH

Yes, I thought it would be fewer women being the breadwinners.

That is my experience. I work in a professional role that is very high paying, but it’s very demanding in terms of what is expected. In general what happens is that most women in my profession find that once they have children they may go down to four days and are also not going that “extra mile”, because they actually want to see their kids. So suddenly their earnings go down.

When I think of my female colleagues and friends from uni, they all started off earning the same or more than male peers, but now they are all earning a lot less than their partners.

I am a typical example. I became a lone parent and kept working but could not focus on my career 100% as ( as had to do 98% of parenting) so now my exH earns about 10 times what I do.

It'll be non and high earners skewing the stats. Basically it's one of those scenarios where the median isn't going to be particularly relevant.

My husband earns 3x what I earn, roughly £250k to my £70k and I will likely go part time after mat leave whilst his salary will continue to increase. I do see a fair amount of female breadwinners in our respective industries though

@Donotfitin we are the same: I earn just over twice what DH does. i had always earned more (from a £1k gap when we stated dating to a gap around £35k more recently. A few close friends have the same situation.

a few things anecdotally i have noticed our families have in common.

1. woman was top of the class academically through school and continued learning:
2. married / settled fairly young: kids a good few years into the relationship
3. woman quite assertive and not too interested in playing second place to men in general
4. husband takes an equal share of housework and child rearing

can I be nosey? How do you plan to protect yourself financially if you do split after you have kids? Ie both of you having access to all family money etc?

@Boohoololyouve literally described DH and I 🤣 I earn almost double what he does (used to be more than double but he was promoted last year!)

I earn 3x what my DH does. He has a degree . I only went to college once I started working full time and now have two professional qualifications . In our case, he is highly skilled but in a lower paying industry where mine pays more. He took the career break for the kids due to the disparity in our incomes.

yeah, where's the link to the actual nationwide survey, not the summary in the metro which isn't exactly known for journalistic integrity...

reference to the same survey is reported in the evening standard and the independent as "The average wage gap between friends and partners has reached £32,000" which is completely different!

Also it only surveyed 2000 people, compared to the ONS stats which take into account the entire population, so...

For example if the questions first asked:
do both you and your partner work?
then, if yes,
is there a significant disparity in your wages?
and only then
'how much is the difference?'
It wouldn't be reflective of the general population, would it?

plus depending on how they worked out the 'average' (if that even was what the original findings said) one footballer earning £20million with a stay at home WAG would completely skew the statistics.

We have a pre nup that stipulates I’d be entitled to half of everything amassed in the marriage. But aside from that, I plan to always remain in the work force, keep my pension contributions at the same rate even when salary drops if I’m part-time at different points, continue to have have a shared approach to the marital ‘pot’