The Times Top 50 Employers for Women 2021

ATOS
A global leader in digital transformation, we employ more than 110,000 people across 73 countries with an annual revenue of over €12 billion. We believe we can take care of each other and the planet through making positive changes in business and society. We want to reflect the communities we serve, and our strong commitment to gender equality is continually reviewed. Covid-19 brought renewed purpose in this; our “We Are Together” mantra was embodied through a multi-layered programme supporting families and mental health.

AVIVA
We are the largest insurer in the UK, with 16,000 staff nationwide serving 15.5 million customers and managing £450 billion of assets. We believe it is essential to model responsible business practices, and all our people are supported to achieve their potential, regardless of their background, location or role. We promote the progression and retention of talented women through an inclusive culture, organisational support and professional development. We focus on addressing the barriers to and societal benefits of a gender-balanced organisation.

AXA UK AND IRELAND
Our insurance and healthcare business is inspired by our everyday goal of improving people’s lives. The year 2020 was an unprecedented time for many employees. Throughout the pandemic, we have moved to support our employees in these unforeseeable circumstances – and we are using what we’ve learnt to create a fairer and more equitable place to work.

BAIN & COMPANY
We are a global consultancy that helps the world’s most ambitious change-makers define the future on issues of strategy, marketing, organisation, operations, technology, and mergers and acquisitions. We aim to be a leading employer for diverse talent, delivering client results through our community of extraordinary teams. This translates to meaningful actions: more than half of our 2019-20 graduate recruits were female; women are promoted and retained at parity; and we are proud to offer equal paid parental leave of 29 weeks.

years for gender parity to be achieved, according to the Global Gender Gap Report (2020). Source: Fawcett Society

BANK OF AMERICA
As one of the world’s leading financial institutions, we support 66 million customers in finance, from individuals to businesses, governments and institutions. Our 200,000-strong workforce spans the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. We are proud of our focus on investing in women, being a great place to work for female employees, and advancing the economic empowerment of women globally. We emphasise identifying, developing and retaining female talent, through programmes that support progression from entry to senior levels.

BP
We are an integrated energy business that delivers diverse products and services to people around the world. Our purpose is reimagining energy, and working towards net zero, for people and planet. We’re pleased to see improvements in company areas where women were previously under-represented, and to have women leading some of our core businesses. The proportion of women employees across our organisation continues to increase; in 2019, 38 per cent of our workforce were women (compared to 35 per cent in 2018).

BURGES SALMON LLP
An independent and rapidly growing UK law firm, we have offices in Bristol, London and Edinburgh, and more than 850 employees. Diversity and inclusion is integral to our firm-wide strategy. Despite the challenges of 2020, we delivered a consultation with all our people to understand the gender-balance changes they would like to see. We announced a gender action plan at our AGM, and have continued to support disadvantaged women in our community through work placements.

CAPGEMINI UK
We are the UK entity of one of the global leaders in consulting, digital transformation, technology and engineering services, employing 8,000 people. Our female population (28.5 per cent) is increasing and exceeds this male-dominated industry’s norm; we are working to improve this. We know that gender equality and inclusion is critical to our success; it underpins our people’s experience at work, it’s integral to building client relationships and it’s absolutely key to innovating for the sustainable and inclusive future that we want.

CITYFIBRE HOLDINGS LIMITED
Our firm is on a mission to deliver digital infrastructure in the UK to help realise the government’s ambition of nationwide full fibre connectivity by 2025. This will transform the way we live, work and communicate in a digital age, and a central part of delivering our ambition is diversity and inclusion. We are most proud of creating a workplace that is flexible and fair to all, including a market-leading maternity scheme and family policies. During Covid-19, we adapted our working practices to ensure our employees could balance caring responsibilities with the working day.

CMS
We are a future-facing global law firm, with 77 offices across 43 countries. Led by our female chair and board, 45 per cent of whom are women, we are passionate about women’s careers and all diversity and inclusion. Gender equality and communication is central to everything we do. We have worked hard with our family and carers, women’s and BAME networks to drive intersectional thinking and support staff. We have implemented a robust and sustainable strategy as well as policies and programmes to enable women’s careers to thrive.

COSTAIN
Our engineering, construction and technology company works across the water, transportation, energy and defence sectors to design, construct and maintain the UK’s critical infrastructure. Through committed leadership, we are challenging gender stereotypes at all levels and creating a genuinely inclusive working environment where everyone can be at their best every day. We are proud to announce for the first time in our history that more than 50 per cent of those on our executive and PLC boards are women.

CREDIT SUISSE
We are one of the world’s leading financial services, employing approximately 47,440 people globally. Our strategy builds on core strengths of wealth management, specialist investment banking capabilities and a strong presence in our headquartered country market. With senior management support, our data-driven, multifaceted approach to enhancing gender diversity focuses on our public commitment to the Women in Finance Charter. It is delivered by embedding award-winning diversity initiatives across the employee lifecycle to ensure that female talent is attracted, developed and retained by the organisation.

DELOITTE
We are a leading professional services firm, with more than 20,000 UK-based people providing audit, risk advisory, tax and legal, consulting and financial advisory services to public and private clients across multiple industries. Achieving gender balance remains a key priority, and our 2023 inclusion ambition is to build an even more diverse workforce. We have prioritised the attraction, advancement and retention of senior women as part of our action plan, and have already increased female representation at partner level from 14 per cent (2014) to 23 per cent today.

DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT
With more than 3,000 staff based in multiple offices nationwide, we are a public sector organisation working across policy and project delivery through to engineering, digital, IT, HR and law. As a large organisation within a historically male-dominated sector, we are proud that our female talent has increased from 38.9 per cent (2015-16) to 42.6 per cent in 2019-20. With the pressures of Brexit and Covid-19, we have continued to attract and retain women to our teams and contribute to an improved gender balance in transport.

DEPARTMENT FOR WORK AND PENSIONS
We are a public sector organisation that employs more than 80,000 people, 66.8 per cent of whom are women. We provide services to approximately 22 million people, some of whom are the most vulnerable in society. We have transparent ownership and sponsorship led by our director general gender champion, who has sponsored women on talent development programmes across the organisation to ensure that our talent pipeline is both strong and intersectional. We have achieved a 9.7 per cent increase of female representation in senior roles over the last five years.

Companies that have diverse teams achieve 35 per cent better financial results. 1. Race in the Workplace: The McGregor-Smith Review 2. Let’s Talk About Race (BITC)

DEUTSCHE BANK
Our company provides corporate, transaction, investment and retail banking, and asset and wealth management products and services to corporations, governments, institutional investors, small and mid-sized businesses and private individuals. Our organisation has used the challenging modern environment as an opportunity to create sustainable change. Senior management focus on this topic has intensified, and the organisation is using improved data and policies to enact a meaningful cultural shift. We are proud of our thriving employee resource group supporting gender inclusion and our growing technology community for women.

DWF
We are a leading global legal business operating across 31 key locations and employing more than 4,000 people to deliver services within our core sectors, including energy and industrials, financial services, insurance, public sector, real estate, retail, food and hospitality, technology, and transport. We put gender equality at the forefront of business, and this year built on our gender and ethnicity targets, holding global roundtables, engaging all employees and developing structural changes to how we attract, retain and progress women and colleagues from diverse backgrounds.

ENTERPRISE RENT-A-CAR
Our privately held, family-owned global company arrived in the UK in 1994. Since then we have experienced tremendous growth, with more than 450 locations and 5,535 UK employees. This year, we had a female-to-female CEO handover; both women started on our graduate programme, and over 40 per cent of those on our board are women. Our women employees are encouraged to rise to new levels in their career. From mentoring to flexibility for major life events like maternity leave, we ensure that women have what they need to succeed.

EVERSHEDS SUTHERLAND
As a global top 15 law practice, we provide legal advice and solutions to a client base which includes some of the world’s largest multinationals. All our teams are committed to achieving 30 per cent female representation at partner level, and greater gender equality at all levels and across all diversity strands. We have fully embraced the benefits of having a gender-balanced business and strive towards gender balance in all that we do.

EY
We are one of the world’s largest professional services networks and accountancy firms, comprising four service lines: assurance; consulting; strategy and transactions; and tax. Diversity and inclusion (D&I) is the firm’s number one strategic priority, and our D&I Strategy puts gender equality at its heart, through a “differential focus on race and gender”. We publicly commit to 40 per cent female representation in our partnership by 2025 and we have doubled our investment in coaching and sponsorship programmes for women.

FINANCIAL SERVICES COMPENSATION SCHEME
As the UK’s independent compensation scheme for financial services, we cover all regulated financial services nationwide. We are funded through levies on the industry; our services are free to the individuals and businesses who need our help. Our biggest achievement has been on our board of directors and executive team: an increase in the female representation on our executive team from 40 per cent (2019) to 57 per cent (2020), and on our board from 33 per cent (2019) to 54.5 per cent (2020) and 60 per cent (January 2021).

FUJITSU
We are a top digital transformation technology provider globally, with more than five decades of experience providing tech solutions to customers. Our corporate vision is to create a world where people are empowered by technology. We have recognised the unique challenges our people have faced in the pandemic. By focusing on flexibility, personalised support, reducing our pay gaps, launching women-specific training and creating new communities for parents, we have increased female engagement scores by 9 per cent.

GLAXOSMITHKLINE
Our science-led global healthcare company comprises three worldwide businesses that research, develop and manufacture innovative pharmaceutical medicines, vaccines and consumer healthcare products. We are proud of our progress towards workplace gender parity, but know that we have more to do to achieve this at all levels internally, so we can better meet the need of our patients and consumers by ensuring we maximise the skills and abilities of our entire workforce.

GOLDMAN SACHS
We are a global consumer bank, investment bank, securities and investment management firm, providing a wide range of financial services to a substantial client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments and high-net-worth individuals. Our commitment to gender equality and all aspects of diversity and inclusion is absolute. Our firm is built on a foundation of accountability for progress, innovation and leadership. Inspired by our people, clients and the communities we serve, our senior leaders are driving meaningful cultural change to benefit all.

Nearly half of the workers we surveyed for BITC’s Everyday Inclusion campaign reported experiencing some kind of low level non-inclusive behaviour, including unwanted comments and jokes. Rates were significantly higher for women, younger workers, and black, Asian and minority ethnic staff. This extract is from BITC’s Route Map to a More Gender Equal Future report, published March 2021

HACHETTE UK
One of the UK’s leading publishing groups, we are made up of 10 autonomous divisions and more than 50 imprints. We have a distribution arm which provides services to all our publishers and several third-party clients. In four years, we have gone from having a board that was one-third women to one that favours women. In 2017, we pledged that our then 66 per cent female workforce would be reflected in our upper pay quartile by 2020, a target we are approaching at 65 per cent women’s representation.

JACOBS
With $13 billion in revenue and a talent force of 55,000-plus, we provide a full spectrum of professional services including consulting, technical, scientific and project delivery for the government and private sector. Our core value, “We live inclusion”, outlines our approach globally. We are proud of the actionable and measurable targets that we’ve put into place to develop and advance the representation of women in senior-level positions – and of our commitment to recruiting and retaining the best intersectional female talent through our global Action Plan for Advancing Justice and Equality.

KPMG LLP UK
We’re a leading provider of professional services, including audit, tax and advisory services. We are a member firm of a global network, and making female talent central to our business strategy is a priority. We are very proud to have achieved gender parity on our board. Our colleagues lead by example – whether it’s visibility with flexible working arrangements or challenging recruiters for 50-50 shortlists, we are focused on demonstrating that we are serious about recruitment, retention and progression of all women.

LINKLATERS LLP
Our leading global law firm employs more than 6,000 people (of which almost half are lawyers) across 30 offices in 20 countries. The commitment and focus of our senior leaders to drive change and create a truly inclusive culture supports the firm’s commitment to greater gender balance at all career levels. Our focus on inclusive behaviours, sponsorship, agile working and work allocation supports the retention and progression of our talented women.

LLOYDS BANKING GROUP
With more than 30 million customers and 70,000 employees, we are a large retail bank operating through a multi-brand strategy. We are proud of the scale and impact of our talent interventions: 640 women took part in our Women in Leadership (WiL), sponsorship and returnship programmes last year. Since attending, 27 per cent of WiL participants have achieved a promotion; sponsorships increased the rate of promotion five-fold; and 85 per cent of those on the leaders’ returners programme secured a permanent role within the group.

MORGAN STANLEY
As a leading financial services firm, we provide a wide range of investment banking, securities, investment management and wealth management services, operating in more than 41 countries. Our values and strong, inclusive culture set us apart from our competitors, enabling us to attract and retain exceptional talent of all genders. We’re proud to have a woman as our leader, and a board that’s 38 per cent women. We’re committed to accelerating our journey towards gender balance at all levels.

NATWEST GROUP
We are a UK-headquartered company, employing around 62,000 staff globally, and supporting more than 19 million customers to access international markets in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North America. We’re proud that, in addition to improving the proportion of women in our pipeline by 11 per cent (to 43 per cent) and in our most senior roles by 8 per cent (to 37 per cent), our workforce engagement scores are the highest they have ever been since we started measuring colleague sentiment 10 years ago.

NETWORK RAIL
Our company owns, operates and develops Britain’s railway infrastructure. We do this through our devolved route businesses, each led by a managing director and senior team who are accountable for delivering for customers and key stakeholders. We are proud that we created our Gender Matters project to concentrate on how we could bring more women into our business, with a core focus of how to attract, recruit, retain and progress women, addressing any potential issues in underlying culture and facilities.

NORTON ROSE FULBRIGHT LLP
We are a global law firm employing more than 4,000 lawyers and other legal staff, providing the world’s pre-eminent organisations and financial institutions with a full business law service. We value diversity and inclusion and understand its role as a business enabler. We have set ourselves ambitious targets to achieve gender balance at all levels and are driving accountability for these at team level. We strive to create an inclusive culture where everyone can realise their career potential.

OFCOM
We are the communications regulator in the UK, and have a clear business case for embedding gender diversity across our organization and promoting gender equality: our decisions affect all UK citizens and consumers. Colleagues at all levels are striving to achieve our goals, from apprentices to senior management. Our culture is one where women not only feel supported but also know they are vital to our success.

PEPSICO UK & IRELAND
We are a leading global food and beverages company, with a portfolio of brands enjoyed in more than 200 countries. We employ more than 260,000 people globally, including more than 4500 across 11 UK sites. We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace for all employees, through fostering a diverse and vibrant culture, driving programmes to accelerate women’s careers and focusing on how we educate, inspire and role model advocacy and inclusion to achieve our goal of gender parity in management roles by 2025.

PINSENT MASONS LLP
We are a multinational law firm with 25 offices internationally, which responds to the pressures and opportunities facing global businesses with innovative solutions. Like many other sectors, the legal profession suffers from a gender imbalance at senior levels. We are proud to be shifting the dial significantly in relation to gender balance in our senior leadership team and embedding the aspiration to achieve gender balance into our strategy and processes.

POST OFFICE LIMITED
We’re the UK’s largest retail network and financial services chain, with 370 years of service and more nationwide branches (11,500-plus, run by local people) than all of the country’s banks and building societies put together. Our middle and senior management women’s representation is now 45.7 per cent and 45.4 per cent respectively (from 38 per cent in 2018); our aspiration is that this will be 50 per cent by 2024. Gender equality is a business imperative; we are confident that we will continue to make great progress.

PWC LLP
We are a global professional services partnership organisation. As professional advisers, we help our clients solve complex business problems and aim to enhance their ability to add value, manage risk and improve performance. Focusing on our five-point plan for diversity and inclusion actions, we are making progress in committing to and driving real change for gender equality. This includes ensuring our partners are specifically responsible and accountable for gender diversity goals and for taking action to deliver on our published gender targets.

ROYAL MAIL GROUP
A leading employer in the UK’s logistics sector, we are a major purchaser of goods and services throughout the country. Our company is the seventh largest contributor to the UK economy, with £10.3 billion of direct and indirect contributions. Building on our gender-targeted initiatives and increasing our managers’ inclusive leadership capability, our strategy continues to focus on creating a culture where all employees can bring their whole selves to work, and are proud to play their part in delivering high quality service to all our customers.

SANTANDER UK
We are a UK financial services provider offering a wide range of personal and commercial services and products. Our 23,000 employees serve 14 million active customers via a nationwide branch network, including in-person, telephone, online and mobile banking. We are creating a thriving workplace where everyone can learn, grow and succeed while being themselves. Gender balance sits at the heart of our everyday inclusion strategy. We have an ambitious target of 50 per cent (+/- 10 per cent) women in senior management by the end of 2021.

Shockingly, more than half of female respondents to BITC’s Project 28–40 research said they experienced some form of bullying or harassment in their workplace in the previous three years; these levels increase for black, Asian and minority ethnic women. This extract is from BITC’s Route Map to a More Gender Equal Future report, published March 2021

SHELL
Our global energy company aims to meet the world’s growing need for greater and cleaner sustainable energy solutions. With 84,000 employees across more than 70 countries, we are proud of our sustained improvements in women’s representation: 42 per cent of our board is female; 32.6 per cent of senior leaders are women; and we recruit 64 per cent female graduates. We continue to leverage our partnerships to help lead change in the wider UK business community, and foster an inclusive culture where everyone can be their best.

TESCO
We are a leading retailer with 400,000 colleagues globally, serving millions of customers every week, in our stores and online. We’re proud of how engaged our colleagues are about diversity and inclusion across all levels of the organisation. Everyone understands the importance of an inclusive workplace, and with key interventions in place, we’re making real progress in our gender diversity to ensure equal opportunities for everyone to get on.

THAMES WATER UTILITIES LTD
Our purpose is to deliver life’s essential service 24/7, so that our customers, communities and the environment can thrive. To attract more women into operational roles, we introduced a gender decoder app, which changed masculine coded words like “competitive” to gender neutral phrases, removing all non-essential criteria; consequently, we saw an increase from 8 per cent to 46 per cent female applicants for technician vacancies. This year, we appointed a woman CEO and have set five-year targets including an increase in women’s representation to 45 per cent overall, and a year-on-year reduction in our gender pay gap.

WEST MIDLANDS COMBINED AUTHORITY (WMCA)
Members of our West Midlands-based organisation work collaboratively to improve transport, economic development, regeneration, skills, employment and housing, and to deliver public sector reform to close the productivity gap and achieve inclusive growth in the economy. We provide an inclusive workplace for all employees and have achieved a good gender balance. Nearly half of our workforce is female, and 55 per cent of our senior leadership team are women.

WILLMOTT DIXON
We are a privately owned contracting and interior fit-out group that was founded in 1852 and has been carbon-neutral since 2012. We’ve restored famous landmarks like the east wing at Alexandra Palace and the Old Admiralty Building in Horse Guards Parade. We’re the first construction company to commit to achieving gender parity at each job grade by 2030, with pioneering new measures now being rolled out, such as a new agile and home-working policy and industry funding for EG’s Future Female Leaders programme.