Equal Pay Day marks the point at which women working full-time effectively stop earning each year.

Women working full-time still earn almost £5,000 a year less than men, though the pay gap in some jobs is three times bigger, according to a Trade Union Congress (TUC) analysis of official figures published to mark the UK’s Equal Pay Day.

Equal Pay Day – which is on 7 November in the UK – marks the point at which women working full-time effectively stop earning as they are paid 15 per cent less per hour than men working full-time.

But in some professions the gender pay gap is much wider, says the TUC.

According to the TUC’s research, female health professionals have the biggest pay gap at 31 per cent, which works out at £16,000 a year.

A key reason for the size of the pay gap in health is the earnings of the best-paid professionals. Top male professionals in health earn nearly £50 an hour, twice as much as top earning women who earn £24.67 an hour.

Women working in culture, media and sport experience the next biggest pay gap at 27.5 per cent – which works out at £10,000 a year – while women working in manufacturing occupations earn nearly 24 per cent less than men.

Women earn less than men in 32 of the 35 major occupations classified by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The three major occupations where women earn more than men – transport drivers, electricians and agricultural workers – are all male dominated. Less than 50,000 women are employed in these sectors; 1.5 million men are.

The gender pay gap in the private sector is 19.9 per cent, the pay gap in the public sector 13.6 per cent.

The gender pay gap is even bigger for women working part-time. Equal Pay Day for women working part-time was back on 27 August. Women earn 35 per cent less per hour than men working full-time.

The TUC believes that as four decades of equal pay legislation have only halved – rather than eradicated – the gender pay gap, and a tougher approach is needed to stop millions of workers losing out on pay and career opportunities simply because of their gender.

One of the reasons for the gender pay gap is the lack of transparency in pay systems. That allow companies to pay female employees less than their male colleagues, without staff even being aware of it, says the TUC.

Publishing annual gender pay gap information and conducting regular pay audits would enable companies to identify any gender pay gaps, and then action could be taken to close them.

However, just one in 100 companies voluntarily publishing equal pay information.

The TUC wants the government to legislate and make audits compulsory additions to annual company reports.

More senior level part-time jobs are also needed to help women continue their careers after having children, says the TUC.

Too many women are forced to trade down their jobs and abandon their careers just to find working hours that they can fit around their childcare arrangements.

The TUC wants the government to boost the availability of more senior part-time jobs by encouraging employers to advertise all jobs on a flexible basis where possible.

Ministers could take the initiative by making it a requirement for all public sector job vacancies, says the TUC.

The government should also strengthen the right to request flexible working by removing the six month qualifying period and making it available to employees from the day they start a new job.

Remarking on this, the TUC’s General Secretary, Frances O’Grady, said: “It is a huge injustice that women are still earning on average almost £5,000 a year less than men.

“This pay gap can add up to hundreds of thousands over the course of a woman’s career.

“The gender pay gap, which continues despite decades of girls outperforming boys at school and university, is also a huge economic failure.

“Four decades on from the Equal Pay Act, it’s clear we need to take a tougher approach so that future generations of women don’t suffer the same penalties.

“One simple way would be to force companies to be more transparent about how they pay staff. Pay transparency and pay audits would give employers the evidence they need to finally take closing the pay gap seriously.”

Charlie Woodworth of the Fawcett Societysaid: “It is scandalous that in modern Britain women can expect to take home just 85p for every pound men earn.

“The persistent gap in pay shows just how far we still have to go when it comes to achieving equality between the sexes.

“In recent years, progress on closing the gap has begun to slow.

“As austerity continues to bite we now face the very real danger that the gap will widen, as more and more women find themselves forced out of the public sector and onto the dole or into the private sector workforce – where the pay gap stands at 20 per cent.

“The labour market,” Woodworth continued, “is experiencing dramatic change, and women are bearing the brunt of cuts to jobs.

“If the government doesn’t address this growing problem, we risk returning to a much more male-dominated workforce, with record numbers of women unemployed, those in work typically earning less, and the gap in pay between women and men beginning to grow instead of shrink.”