This year marks the 40th anniversary of the 1970’s Equal Pay Act, but despite this landmark, things aren’t quite equal yet, but moving in the right direction.

According to the 2010 National Management Salary Survey, conducted by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and XpertHR, female salaries increased by 2.8 per cent over the last 12 months, compared with 2.3 per cent for men.

While this sounds like good news for women, as the current male salary is currently £10,031 more than that of a female manager, it will take 57 years before their take-home pay is equal to that of their male colleagues. Data collected from 43.312 individuals in 197 organisations reveals that male pay outstrips female salaries by as much as 24 per cent at the most senior level.

Female executives in the IT and pharmaceutical industry experience pay gaps that are higher than any other sectors, at £17,736 and £14,018 respectively.

The research by the CMI also revealed that, over the last 12 months, 4.5 per cent of the female workforce have experience redundancy, compared to just 3 per cent of men. The difficult economic circumstances combined with unsatisfactory remuneration may also have contributed to a dramatic increase in resignations, particularly at director level, where 7.7 per cent of female directors voluntarily left their posts in the last year, compared to just 3.6 per cent of men.

CMI’s head of policy Petra Wilton says: “We want to see government take greater steps to enforce pay equality by monitoring organisations more closely and naming and shaming those who fail to pay male and female staff fairly.

“It’s not just government that needs to act. Competitive businesses need to attract diverse workforces and appeal to the most talented employees. To do this managers and employers need to recruit from a wide talent pool but they cannot expect to attract the UK’s best female talent if they continue to undervalue it.”