Four women are named in top 10 BBC salary earners: Zoe Ball is the top earning female star, with Fiona Bruce, Lauren Laverne and Sophie Raworth also making the list as gender pay gap narrows on last year to 4.7%

• Ball top among women with salary of between £980,000 and £984,999
• Fiona Bruce earned £395,000-£399,999, the sixth highest overall earner 

Zoe Ball leads four women who feature in the top ten highest earners at the BBC, figures revealed today.

The BBC’s annual report showed the Radio 2 presenter earned between £980,000 and £984,999 in 2022/23, a figure unchanged from the previous 12 months.

She hosts her popular breakfast show and a tribute programme to the late Terry Wogan. 

Ball is only pipped to the top overall earning spot at the BBC by Gary Lineker, who earned between £1,350,000 and £1,354,999. 

The leading female earner behind her is Question Time presenter Fiona Bruce, who earned £395,000-£399,999, while in third is Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs host Lauren Laverne, who raked in £390,000-£394,999.

The fourth highest-earning female star is BBC News presenter Sophie Raworth, who earned £365,000-£369,999.

Zoe Ball leads four women who feature in the top ten highest earners at the BBC, figures revealed today

The leading female earner behind her is Question Time presenter Fiona Bruce, who earned £395,000-£399,999, while in third is Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs host Lauren Laverne, who raked in £390,000-£394,999

This year’s figures mark the third time four women have featured in the top ten since the BBC began publishing the salary data of its headline talent in 2017.

There were four female earners in the top ten in 2020/2021 and 2019/2020. In 2017/18, all of the top 12 earners were men. Last year saw three women feature in the top ten. 

The BBC’s annual report also showed how women make up half of the BBC’s workforce for the first time – though the proportion of women on the list of the highest on-air salaries has fallen.

Some 41 per cent of the 68 names on the 2022/23 list are female, down from 45 per cent in 2021/22.

In third is Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs host Lauren Laverne, who raked in £390,000-£394,999

The threshold for disclosing the salaries of the BBC’s top earners has risen in the latest report from £150,000 to £178,000.

Had it remained at £150,000, women would have made up 43 per cent of the list of on-air salaries instead of 41 per cent, according to the BBC annual report.

Across the BBC as a whole, 50 per cent of the workforce in 2022/23 were female – the first time this figure has been reached in the corporation’s history, meeting a target for 50:50 representation by 2026.

Meanwhile just over one in five people on the 2022/23 list of top on-air salaries (22 per cent) is non-white, up from 20 per cent in 2021/22.

The fourth highest-earning female star is BBC News presenter Sophie Raworth, who earned £365,000-£369,999

The highest-paid non-white broadcasters on the 2022/23 list are newsreader George Alagiah, Breakfast and 5 Live presenter Naga Munchetty and Today presenter Amol Rajan, who are all in the £335,000-£339,999 salary band.

In total there are 15 non-white people on the list, including Today presenter Mishal Husain (£315,000-£319,999), economics editor Faisal Islam (£230,000-£234,999), football pundit Jermaine Jenas (£190,000-£194,999) and World News presenter Yalda Hakim (£178,000-£184,999).

The BBC has pledged that 20 per cent of its total staff will be from ethnic minority backgrounds by 2026.

The figure for 2022/23 was 17 per cent.

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