Maritime HR firm Spinnaker’s most recent salary survey based on full year 2022 figures shows that technical roles in the maritime sector quickly move away from relative equality at a trainee level to extreme gender disparity at director level.
The proportion of women in what Spinnaker categorised as the technical and marine job family “remains stagnant at around 13%”, according to the survey. And that figure has declined by 2% as compared with the same company’s survey data from 2020.
“At a junior/trainee level, 44% of reported incumbents are women, however, this percentage steeply drops to 10% at the professional level and keeps declining until it reaches just 3% at the head of/director level. Despite a slight improvement at the head of/director level (1% more females in charge since 2021), we can still state the job family is one of the least gender diverse across the others reported,” Spinnaker reported.
The survey took in data from 83 of Maritime HR Association members covering more than 4,800 technical and marine staff based in or originating from 74 countries. The sample represents 12% of the reported workforce.
An entrenched trend in the maritime sector to hire ex-seafarers for roles in the technical and marine job family is a central factor in the gender divide in these roles on shore.
“The lack of women on board is impacting the number of women in these jobs ashore,” Spinnaker said. “We know from the market that women are more likely to be found in the deck teams on board, so it’s not surprising that technical roles ashore are male-dominated.”
International Maritime Organization (IMO) statistics reveal only 2% of seafarers are female.
