Again pay was very low and in many cases it was paid piece rates, which is when they were paid for each product they produced. Things were made like jewellery, lead soldiers, clothes etc. Even though in Britain it was quite straight forward to find work for women they usually had to put up with the worst conditions and lowest pay, maybe about two thirds of a mans or less.
Second to domestic service the main employer of women in the 19th century was the textile industry. The new textile mills employed mainly women and youth but having to work from 4 o clock in the morning until half past 7 at night in dirty factories with no windows, heating and poor lighting (which caused many accidents) was dreadful. In these factories women and girls operated machinery such as the steam loom and in many factories all the workers were women, especially with the new machinery, which did not require the operator to be very strong. Women and older girls involved in thrustle spinning made between 5 to 10 shillings per week while their male counterparts, working on fine yarns, could make as much as 36shilling a week. .
As I mentioned, many people were not happy about these jobs as the pay was low and conditions poor. Women started wanting to leave behind the factory floor and move on to more ambitious things. A job that many women saw as high respected and tried to become was shop assistants in shops such a Boots, which was opened in 1883 and had many female shop assistants working for it and Sainsburys that opened in 1882 and gave many women the chance to work for them. It was more enjoyable for women than working in a job that they didn't enjoy and even though the pay wasn't that much better, they felt that it was better made doing something they enjoyed than despised. .
Due to their lack of education, it was very difficult for women to be promoted above men as they were thought of as being less capable.
