Band 9: The bar chart below shows the employment of all male and female workers by occupation in the UK in the year 2005. Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

The bar chart illustrates the proportion of male and female workers employed in different occupations in the UK in 2005.

Overall, men dominated technical and manual occupations, whereas women were far more represented in administrative and service-related roles. Some professions, such as professional and associate technical jobs, showed a relatively balanced gender distribution.

In detail, the highest percentage of male workers was seen in skilled trades, at around 20%, compared with only about 3% of women. Men also outnumbered women in managers and senior officials (approximately 18% versus 12%) and in process, plant and machine operatives, where male employment stood at roughly 13%, more than double that of females.

By contrast, women were significantly more likely to work in administrative and secretarial positions, accounting for about 23%, while the figure for men was only around 6%. A similar pattern can be observed in personal service and sales and customer service, where female employment clearly exceeded male participation. In professional and associate professional roles, the difference between genders was smaller, with figures close to 12-15% for both sexes.