Data reveals that the average wage for women in Trafford is £14.43 per hour, whereas men are paid £16.80 an hour, creating a gap of 14.1 per cent. This is bigger than the standard pay gap in England.

Across the country, there was found to be an 8.2 per cent gap between genders this year with females earning £16.65 per hour on average, whereas men were paid £18.14, according to the Office of National Statistics.

Wednesday 22 November will be known as ‘Equal Pay Day’. With the difference in wages, women effectively work for free from this date until the end of the year, Fawcett Society worked out.

‘Equal Pay Day’ is a national campaign, led by the UK’s Fawcett Society. 

The association was founded in memory of Millicent Fawcett, a suffragette in the 1900s, “who made it her lifetime’s work to secure the women’s right to vote”.

Chief executive of the Fawcett Society, Jemima Olchaski, said the campaign day is “on behalf of women across the country – but we shouldn’t have to”.

She acknowledges, “the UK’s gender pay gap has hardly moved on in recent years, and this isn’t good enough”.

The Fawcett Society's statistics stood at a 10.7 per cent pay gap UK wide, barely shifting from last year's 10.9 per cent statistics.

Jemima also comments on the fact that, “The gender pay gap hits black and minoritised women hardest”, campaigning that “we need to make ethnicity reporting pay gap mandatory to report the quality of data on the issue”.

She added: “This is just 48 hours later than last year and represents a glacial shift in the gender pay gap of just 0.2 percentage points.

"A lack of genuinely flexible, quality work traps women in roles below their capabilities and encourages the notion that flexible work is a privilege, not an essential part of a modern economy. This is a big reason we have a persistent gender pay gap which harms women and our economy.”

Alarmingly, the statistics found saw men in Trafford’s wages decreasing by 4.2 per cent annually, while women increased by 5.5 per cent more than it was found to be, a year ago. Yet the gap is still very high.

Figures also revealed that this year, the gap in Trafford had narrowed by 7.9 per cent points. Scotland reportedly had the narrowest pay gap, at 1.7 per cent.

Rebecca Florrison, Principal Analyst at the Work Foundation at Lancaster University, said: “Although the gender pay gap has narrowed over time, it remains substantial. We know that women are nearly twice as likely as men to be in insecure and low-paid work, and the picture is even worse for mothers”.

She believes that, to “ensure fewer women feel the need to trade job security against flexibility”, we must be “boosting the provision of affordable care and childcare options and embedding flexibility across a much greater proportion of secure and well-paid jobs.”

Women in the South East suffered some of the greatest inequalities, at 12.9 per cent, and in the North West the gap stood at 7.8 per cent on average.

A Government Equality Hub spokesperson said: “The gender pay gap has been trending downwards since 1997, and the Government continues to take significant action to ensure women can reach their full potential at work.

“We are starting a childcare revolution with an increase to 30 hours free childcare from 9 months to school age, £100 million in capital funding to help nurseries expand, and £289 million for the wraparound care across the country.

“Millions of employees will be able to request flexible working from day one, and our STEM returners programme is getting carers back into the workplace.”