Top STEM graduate employers ranked on pay equity

Want to work for a STEM employer that values gender equity? Here are the top 10 and beyond by pay equity

STEM employers 3M, Rio Tinto, CSL, Google and PwC have all performed well on base pay equity in Australia’s first ranking of gender pay gaps at nearly 5,000 private sector organisations.

For the first time you can now see the difference between what men and women get paid at Australia’s biggest graduate employers. This type of transparency has been shown to work in closing the gender pay gap in other countries like the UK.

The Minister for Women, Senator Katy Gallagher, said the publication of employer gender pay gaps was a pivotal moment for gender equality in Australia.

“Transparency and accountability are critical for driving change,” Minister Gallagher said. “By shining a light on gender pay gaps at an employer level, we are arming individuals and organisations with the evidence they need to take meaningful action to accelerate closing the gender pay gap in Australian workplaces.”

STEM pay equity by company

Here at Careers with STEM we’ve crunched the numbers for 70 graduate employers who hire STEM graduates. So if pay equity matters to you when choosing an employer (and it should), you can see below both the best ranking organisations overall, and also by industry.

The collated data comes from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), and it found while 30% of employers have a median gender pay gap between the target range of -5% and +5%, the majority (62%) of median employer gender pay gaps are over 5% and in favour of men.

It’s illegal in Australia to pay men and women a different salary for the same work, but many companies have a gender gap where men perform more senior, higher-paid roles. This has traditionally been a big problem in STEM fields as well. Only 27% of the STEM workforce are women, with women earning $27,012 less across STEM industries, according to the 2023 STEM Equity Monitor.

In a statement, the Commonwealth Bank said 54% of its local workforce were women and it had achieved gender pay equity on a “like-for-like” basis. While women represent around 44% of its leadership roles, they make up around 71% of customer service and operational roles in branches and call centres, which typically have lower relative rates of pay across industry.

The bank said it had goals to increase the proportion of women in both more senior roles and higher paying roles. “We are also working with government, industry, education providers and community groups to support more girls and women to enter the workforce with skills highly sought after in the Australian market to help diversify Australia’s talent pool.”

All the data

You can dig into all private companies with 100 employees or more over on the WGEA Data Explorer, including checking the policies they are adopting to close the pay gap, such as correcting like-for-like pay gaps and reviewing remuneration decision-making processes.

But for the TL;DR, here are the top 10 graduate employers by gender pay equity for base salary. A negative number means the balance is tipped in favour of women.

And these are the best performers by industry.

Accounting and professional services

Aviation

Banking, financial services and insurance

Consulting

Engineering

Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG)

Health

IT and telecommunications

Manufacturing

Mining

Oil, gas energy and resources

Retail

And here’s the full list of the major STEM graduate employers, ranked on gender pay equity in base pay (without bonuses).

Be inspired by all the women working in STEM at our profile hub.