MEN and women working in Scotland's top jobs will not be paid the same salaries for another 75 years, new research has claimed.

The pay gap between male and female executives is now £10,314, according to the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), but while wage rises for women have risen slightly above those afforded to their male colleagues, it will take three generations for high-powered workers to be on an even footing if the pace of improvements stays the same.

Pay equality may be reached by 2086, the CMI said, with figures showing that the pay gap has actually widened this year by just under £500.

The CMI said yesterday the figures added up to “bad management” practices that were damaging UK business and alienating top female talent.

The study shows that an average 2.7% salary increase for female executives in the 12 months up to February this year is down overall on the same period in the year before, when women enjoyed an average 3.8% increase in their wages. For males in similar ranking roles, their pay rises went down to 2.3% compared to 2.9% the previous year.

The research, for the 2011 National Management Salary Survey, found that the average salary for a man in an executive role in Scotland is now £40,965, with a woman working in an equivalent role paid £30,652.

CMI’s head of business development in Scotland, Ian Andrew, said: “This year’s salary survey demonstrates, yet again, that businesses in Scotland are contributing to the persistent gender pay gap and alienating top female employees by continuing to pay men and women unequally. This kind of bad management is damaging UK businesses and must be addressed.

“It is the responsibility of every executive, both female and male, organisation and the Government to help bring about change. Diversity shouldn’t be seen as something that has to be accommodated, but something that must be celebrated.

“Imposing mandatory quotas and forcing organisations to reveal salaries is not the solution. We need the Government to scrutinise organisational pay, demand more transparency from companies on pay bandings and publicly expose organisations found guilty of fuelling the gender pay gap.”

Scotland, however, is not alone in wage disparity between the sexes. The biggest gap, of £13,793, was found in Northern Ireland, followed by £11,346 in the Midlands and £11,129 for London. Wales has the most equal salaries, but even there male executives still receive £2441 more than their female peers.

Despite the latest figures, Scotland is still one of the best places in the UK for female executives to earn a good wage.

After London and the south-east, where high-ranking women are paid £42,517 and £33,427 respectively, women north of the Border come just behind those in the south-west (£31,247) for wages.

Meanwhile, the CMI found the shrinking economy and redundancy hit men and women across the UK equally hard between February 2010 and February 2011, with 2.2% of male executives and the same percentage of female executives losing their jobs across the UK.

The CMI said it signalled an “encouraging shift” from last year when 3% of men were made redundant compared to 4.5% of women. But the study shows women at more senior levels are more likely to lose their jobs.

Sandra Pollock, national chair of CMI’s Women in Management network, said: “It’s disappointing to find that at the current rate of increase it would be almost a century before men and women in executive jobs are paid equally. Too often managers are male and aged 45-plus, and we are fighting an ongoing war to ensure that professions attract people based on their talent and not their age or gender.”