SPECIAL REPORT: MCV research shows that the average salary for women is £33,260 a year
Who said the games industry was just a boys club?
Whilst women are still a minority in the sector’s workforce, they are earning more than their male counterparts, according to research conducted by MCV.
Average female annual salaries are £2,000 higher than the male wage, at £33,260.
The data comes from a survey conducted by MCV and its sister magazine Develop, featuring responses from 528 UK games industry professionals. Our research took in all sectors, from retail and publishing through to services and development, plus the games media and PR.
Our overall results buck the national averages, too. The overall average games industry yearly salary is £31,655, higher than the Office of National Statistics' average of £24,908. The ONS says that, on average, women earn up to £100 a week less than men, but in games it’s a contrasting figure – with women making around £40 more a week than men.
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Women working in the games industry also seem to be more optimistic about their career and job prospects for 2009. 72 per cent of female respondents said that they were confident about the year ahead, versus 66 per cent of men who said the same.
Although just ten per cent of the industry’s workforce is female, prominent women in the sector think the news shows that the market should be attracting more female talent.
“This proves that women can forge decent careers in what is perceived as a male-dominated sector,” said one leading publisher’s HR rep.
Nicola Bhalerao, a software engineer at Microsoft studio Rare – and head of the Women in Games Conference – added: “This is fantastic news. Hopefully it will help attract more women to make great quality games.”
Check back to MCV over the next week to find out more data from our salary survey, plus content from our recruitment special.
Comments
women's wages
How many women actually responded? I don't think you can compare this to the actual non games economy. There the samples will be almost comparable in size and a lot of the women in the general market will be part time. No wonder their average wage gets dragged lower. If you have a very small sample of women in your survey and just a few of them skew way above the mean or average wage then it will heavily distort the sample. It may be true, altho I'm sceptical, if you had all the top paid men in the survey dragging the male average higher. To publish this as a fact, without showing what % of the total market was interviewed is probably not great journalism.
Re: women's wages
Hi Kenny,
You can find a detailed analysis of our research and methodology in today’s MCV magazine.
The in-depth information contained in the issue will allay any fears that the data has been skewed in any way.
Indeed, we even discounted the contributions of some top female earners to reach a more representative figure.
Best wishes,
The MCV team
Re: Re: women's wages
surely this is simply a result of the fact that the lower paid jobs - testers, junior programmers etc - are usually filled by males with a passion for gaming who want to get into the industry, whereas the majority of female earners in the industry are in job roles such as marketing, pr etc that typically have much higher pay. This would skew the results significantly.
Lies, damn lies and statistics.
Re: Re: Re: women's wages
FYI: We've just posted up an extra story detailing our methodology, which explains who answered what, and percentages, etc. Anne and Kenny - this should dispell your concerns.
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MCV is the leading trade news and community site for all professionals working within the UK and international video games market. It reaches everyone from store manager to CEO, covering the entire industry. MCV is published by Intent Media, which specialises in entertainment, leisure and technology markets