Around three in four businesses are paying male employees more than their female colleagues, the latest Government data shows.
More than 1,000 organisations with 250 or more workers have published their gender pay gap figures.
Based on median hourly earnings, 74% of companies pay men more than women, while 15% pay women more than men and 11% report no difference.
Firms with a large pay gap favouring men include clothing chain Phase Eight, where the hourly rate for men is 54.5% higher than for women, Tui Airways (47.3%) and easyJet (45.5%).
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On its website, fashion retailer Phase Eight said: “Whilst on first glance, our published gender pay gap figures suggest the average man has a higher hourly rate of pay than the average female, this is misleading and does not reflect the true story and culture within the Phase Eight business.
“The figures result from the fact that, as a women’s fashion retailer, the staff in our stores are overwhelmingly female, whilst our corporate head office staff (whose pay rates are typically higher) are more evenly split between men and women. This will cause significant disparity across our results where this imbalance is not taken into consideration.”
At the other end of the scale, when women are paid more than their male colleagues, Three Rivers council reports an hourly median average for women 42.0% higher than for men.
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Other local authorities with a gender pay gap favouring women include Pendle council (36.0%) and Fylde council (18.7%).
The median average is different from a simple mean average as it is based on the midpoint – or middle value – between either end of a salary range.
A mean average can give a misleading impression of gender pay if a company has a lot of people on a high salary and only a few on very low pay.
Based on mean average, some 84% of businesses pay male staff members more than women.
The Government has made it mandatory for all organisations with 250 or more workers to report annually on their gender pay gap, and the remaining 8,000 are required to publish the first set of data by April.
The gender pay gap is different to “equal pay”, which deals with the pay differences between men and women who carry out the same jobs.