The UK's financial services industry has the biggest gender pay gap of any sector, with the vast majority of women and more than half of male staff aware of the discrepancy in remuneration, new research has found.

Salary benchmarking site Emolument.com asked 857 staff across a range of industries in the UK if they thought there was a gap in pay between sexes, and then compared the findings with the actual difference in pay based on salary data from 50,000 staff working in those sectors.