Values Value: Raising women's salary expectations will help close the gender pay gap

Encouraging women to request higher pay — and not just to match the salaries of their male counterparts — could be the key to closing the gender pay gap.

That's according to Tanja Loktionova, founder of Values Value, who presented the findings of the recruitment agency's annual salary survey at Devcom yesterday.

During her session, she showed that not only do women earn less than men in almost every discipline within the games industry, but they also expect less when asked what salary they believe would be fair.

"The gender pay gap exists," she told attendees. "And it has always existed."

"We need to turn on the light. When it's seen in the open, it will be much harder to maintain in the way that it has historically continued to go on in the games industry. And it's not just this industry for this gender pay gap."

The survey was based on responses from 1,832 developers around the world, with the majority of responses coming from Europe, including non-EU countries such as the UK.

69% of respondents were male, 29% were female and 2% identified as other. 19% of those surveyed had worked in games for more than ten years, and most were in senior, lead or management roles, including top-level and C-suite executives.

18% have been affected by layoffs within the past year. The vast majority of those have since found other roles — mostly those in HR and recruitment, which were among the most affected departments. 5% of all respondents had been laid off and were still searching for work.

When it comes to the gender pay gap, men predictably outearned women in all but two disciplines. Women in HR and recruitment earned on average €6,000 more than their male colleagues, while women in programming and development earned fractionally more than men.

The biggest gap between men and women was in marketing and user acquisition, with men earning an average of €65,400 and women an average of €38,000 — a 42% difference. Top-level management and C-suite male respondents earned an average of €76,752, while women earned €58,080, a difference of 24%.

However, the most interesting differences could be found when asking respondents about "the salary you desire and find fair."

Men once again led in all but two disciplines — HR and programming/development, where women already outearn men — but the key finding was that while men expected to earn considerably more than they were already receiving, women's expectations were almost always more in line with men's current average salaries.

The most prominent example was in top-level management. While men desired an average of €100,000 - nearly €25,000 more than the average salary for a man in a leadership position - women desired €72,000. This is only €14,000 more than the current average for women, but also €4,000 lower than the average male leader's salary and €28,000 lower than men's expectations for the position.

When asked later whether this is partly due to the lack of salary transparency and discussion, Loktionova said: "The problem is the majority of salary negotiations in many industries start from the expectations of the candidate. Unfortunately, it's the women who take this first step and say they want this or that. But when we look at this slide, they not only get less, they want less.

"That is why we need to spread the word. I want this slide, this comparison seen by every manager and every woman. If we really want to overcome this gender pay gap, we first need to start with awareness and raising the bar.

"What's most unfortunate for me is the difference with the seniority level is not the same. The juniors have almost the same salaries, actual and desired, and the greatest difference is at the top management and C-suite levels. It's really frustrating, because women might think if they rise up in their career, they'll overcome the pay gap — but that just doesn't happen."

"We need to improve diversity and inclusiveness, and better support women — whether you're male or female — and spread the word about this inequality. This will help women hold these salary negotiations on a more powerful base and background."

Looking solely at the senior level salaries, the average manager earned between €35,000 for QA and testing and €84,000 for top-level and C-suite management. While top-level management was unsurprisingly the highest earners, the second highest was analytics at €77,000, followed programming and development leads at €66,151.

These figures were the averages for all respondents, including those in both EU and non-EU countries, such as the UK. When you look only at the non-EU countries, every discipline saw the average job, ranging from €31,010 for QA and testing to €56,400 for top-level and C-suite.

Loktionova told attendees that all but two disciplines actually saw the average salary increase when compared to the results of the 2023 survey. Only HR/recruitment and QA/testing saw their salaries fall year-on-year, with Loktionova later suggesting this data may have been impacted by the fact that QA and HR were among the departments worst affected by the layoffs seen over the past twelve months.

Elsewhere, the survey found that hybrid workers are more satisfied with their employment than remote or on-site workers, and that staff who are offered no financial bonuses of any sort are most likely to want to change jobs or companies.

The least likely to leave their current role are those who are offered any mix of the following: a percentage of all game sales, profit share, paid parenting leave, and/or project bonuses.