Financial services firms have published their gender strategies showing ambitious targets to tackle the gender gap, as part of the government’s Women in Finance Charter which was introduced by the Treasury earlier this year
As part of the charter, firms agreed to publish their progress on gender balance annually and have now revealed higher targets for female representation at the highest levels.
Out of the 72 firms who signed the charter, 60 have now committed to having at least 30% of women in senior roles by 2021, this includes 15 banks and 13 insurers who together employ over 375,000 people in the UK.
Thirteen organisations such as Virgin Money and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) are aiming to have a 50/50 split in senior roles.
The firms have also outlined strategies they will use to achieve their targets, including improving flexible working, making recruitment gender neutral and distributing high profile work more evenly.
Even though financial services is the country’s highest paid sector but has the widest gender pay gap at 39.5%.
PwC was the first accountancy firm to publish its gender pay gap externally, with their targets set to be achieved by July 2020. The firm has already passed its target of having 47% of women in the firm as managers, with 49% of managers currently being female.
The Treasury has signed the charter and has set a target to increase the representation of women in the department to 50%. It will report back on its performance in achieving this target in September 2017.
The FCA has set a target for 45% of the senior leadership team to be female by 2020, and 50% by 2025. Currently, the FCA has a 39% female to 61% male ratio in the senior leadership team.
Prime minister, Theresa May, said: ‘The UK is a world leader in financial services, but the sector could do even better if it made the most of many talented women who work in finance. Too few women get to the top and many don’t progress as quickly as they should or they leave the sector completely.
'So it is good news that so many firms have signed the Women in Finance Charter and are now dedicating themselves to tackling gender inequality. They recognise the business case for doing so and with ambitious targets to deepen the female talent pool, these firms are leading the way.’
As part of the charter, firms also agreed to make an individual executive responsible for its commitments; around 20 firms have named their CEO as the senior executive accountable for progress against their targets.
Additional signatories to the charter will be announced in November 2016.
The full list of charter signatories and their targets is available here.
