The Church of England has a worse gender pay gap than the BBC and other national organisations, figures on Tuesday revealed.

Men are paid 41 per cent more than women in the CofE's central office, the statistics showed, compared to a national average of 18 per cent and the BBC's gap of 10 per cent.

Published as part of new rules that force organisations employing more than 250 people to reveal their gender pay gap, the data reveals the median pay for male church officials is £45,072 compared to £31,900 for women.

The figures do not cover clergy and relate to 452 employees of the National Church Institutions (NCIs), the central office of the CofE.

But a spokesman for the CofE said 'the pay difference for nearly three-quarters of our staff is less than one per cent, and for half of staff there is no gap in pay between men and women'.

He added: 'However, the data also shows where we have more work to do in reducing the difference in pay between men and women in more highly paid roles, and improving the ratio of men to women in the most senior and most junior roles.

'We are taking steps to address these issues including reviewing our job evaluation and pay methodology and making changes to our recruitment strategy to attract a greater diversity of candidates.'

It comes after criticism directed at the BBC, the NHS and other public bodies who were revealed to pay men significantly more than women in the same roles.

Last month some of the BBC's highest profile female stars heaped the pressure on BBC director general Tony Hall urging him to 'act now' to correct the gender pay gap.

In an open letter signed by more than 40 starts including BBC Sport's Sue Barker as well as Clare Balding, Victoria Derbyshire and Emily Maitlis, they urged him to 'correct' the disparity which they said had been known for 'years'.