Gender pay gap report 2025
Download the British Business Banks Gender and ethnicity pay gap report - 2025
How are we addressing our gender and ethnicity pay gap?
Increases in our gender and ethnicity pay gaps are not where the Bank wants to be. We recognise that addressing the structural imbalances within our organisation, particularly the concentration of men and White colleagues in the Bank’s upper and upper middle quartiles, requires a long term and intentional approach. Reducing these gaps cannot be achieved through short term measures; it demands sustained focus on how we attract, develop and retain diverse talent at all levels.
The Bank remains committed to embedding diversity, equity and inclusion throughout our culture and people practices. While progress takes time, the actions we have taken across 2025/26 represent the next phase of deliberate, targeted work designed to support structural change and drive long term improvements in representation and reduction to both the gender and ethnicity pay gaps.
Actions already underway in 2025/26
Over 2025/26, the Bank has strengthened several aspects of its people and recruitment practices to support more inclusive and equitable outcomes across the colleague lifecycle. These actions directly support the structural changes highlighted by the gender and ethnicity pay gap analysis, particularly the need to increase representation of women and colleagues from minority ethnic backgrounds in upper quartile roles, senior job families and London based opportunities.
Enhancing inclusive recruitment and early career access
The Bank has strengthened its recruitment framework by updating job design tools and job description templates to use inclusive, gender-neutral language, clarify essential versus desirable criteria, and ensure flexible working options are made explicit. Hiring managers now receive updated Effective Recruitment training, focused on mitigating unconscious bias, applying structured and consistent assessment, and making fair, evidence based decisions.
We have also tightened expectations for third-party recruitment partners. Agency agreements are being updated to ensure partners meet defined DEI standards and provide diverse shortlists wherever possible, evidencing when this cannot be achieved. This ensures that diversity and inclusion are embedded not only in our internal processes but also through our external sourcing channels.
Strengthening oversight and governance through enhanced reporting
To improve visibility of the impact of workforce decisions on the GPG and EPG, the Bank now provides monthly internal reporting in relation to the Bank’s GPG and EPG. This enhanced management information does not follow the full statutory methodology, specifically, it does not apply the ‘full pay relevant employee’ definition, but it offers valuable, near real time insight into how hiring, internal moves and promotions are affecting our pay gaps through the year.
This monthly data has shown a consistent downward trend in the Gender Pay Gap since April 2025, with the mean Gender Pay Gap falling from 17.0% in May 2025 to 15.4% by January 2026, and the median falling from 21.3% to around 18.1% over the same period. This pattern suggests that, based on the changes within the workforce during 2025/26, we expect a material reduction in the statutory Gender Pay Gap when we report our 2026 figures.
By contrast, the Ethnicity Pay Gap has remained broadly stable across the same period, with the mean Ethnicity Pay Gap fluctuating slightly between 19.2% and 19.5%, and the median remaining in a narrow band around 23.6% to 24.7%. This stability reinforces what the statutory analysis shows, that ethnicity pay outcomes remain primarily driven by persistent underlying structural representation differences. As a result, while we expect the 2026 Gender Pay Gap to improve meaningfully, the 2026 Ethnicity Pay Gap is likely to remain relatively unchanged unless further structural shifts take place, particularly in the representation of minority ethnic colleagues within upperquartile roles.
Supporting structural progression and long term workforce reform
The Bank is continuing work to ensure that talent processes including recruitment, progression, role design and succession planning, support a more balanced distribution of colleagues across the roles and job families that drive the pay gaps. Modelling demonstrates that improving representation of women and ethnic minority colleagues at Director and Senior Manager levels, and in targeted job families, is the most impactful driver for reducing pay gaps over time.
Building the foundation for future change
These measures form part of a longer term programme of work aligned to the Bank’s wider DEI strategy and the commitments made under the Women in Finance Charter, including new tiered representation targets to be achieved by September 2028. Together, these initiatives are creating the conditions for a more diverse talent pipeline, strengthening inclusivity across people processes, and supporting the structural change required to narrow the gender and ethnicity pay gaps sustainably.
Diversity data and our people processes
It is our ongoing commitment to continuously monitor and safeguard the integrity and fairness of our policies, processes, and structures to ensure equal opportunities for all:
We test our annual pay progression and promotions for any differences between men and women.
We test our bonus awards for any gender differences in the percentages of bonus pay-outs relative to their bonus opportunities.
We have an internal job evaluation system which considers the scope and the breadth of each role irrespective of the jobholder. This means that our internal Bands are not decided based on the person doing the job (in which case the system could be susceptible to biases) but based on the content of the job.
We test our yearly talent and performance management processes for representation against the wider organisational population.
We collect data to analyse our attraction and recruitment processes.
Women in Finance Charter
In March 2018, the Bank signed up to HM Treasury’s Women in Finance Charter which commits firms to supporting the progression of women into senior roles in the financial services sector by focusing on the executive pipeline and the mid-tier level.
The Charter was established in 2016, following a government review in 2015 which found that women made up only 14% of executive committees in the financial services sector. The Charter asks financial services firms to commit to four industry actions to foster gender balance in senior managerial roles. These are:
- Having one member of our senior executive team who is responsible and accountable for gender diversity and inclusion.
- Setting internal targets for gender diversity in our senior management.
- Publishing progress annually against these targets in reports on our website.
- Having an intention to ensure the pay of the senior executive team is linked to delivery against these internal targets on gender diversity.
Our commitment to the Charter
Over 400 firms, covering more than 1.3 million employees, have voluntarily signed the Charter, and are covered by its aspiration to tackle gender inequality in financial services. Charter signatories have increased female representation to 35% on average, up from 34% in 2022. This one percentage point average increase year-on-year has been slow and consistent since the Charter launched, and at this pace the signatory average should reach parity in 2038 – but not across all sectors.
Since pledging to the Charter in 2018, the Bank has grown significantly to almost 600 colleagues. Through our signatory to the Charter, we are pledging to be one of the leading businesses in the financial services sector on the path to reducing gender imbalance.
Our commitment in September 2022 was:
- That by end-September 2025, we will maintain at least 50% female representation within our Executive Committee, including attendees (within a 10% tolerance)
- That by end-September 2025, we aim to achieve 40% female representation amongst our senior leadership team and feeder pipelines - Managing Directors and Directors
- That we would appoint one member of our senior executive team to be responsible and accountable for our commitments to the Women in Finance Charter. Because we consider this a priority for the business, we made this the responsibility of our Chief Executive Officer.
- That we intended to link the pay of the senior executive team to delivery against our internal targets on gender diversity. We have a diversity objective included in the performance appraisal process for our senior executive team.
As part of our commitment to the Charter, we reported our progress against our targets as at July 2025 as follows:
44.4% of our Executive Committee members were women 41.1% of our senior leadership team and feeder pipelines - Managing Directors and Directors were women.
We’re pleased that we have been able to achieve our targets under the Charter
Our new Charter commitment 2025-28
Upon completion of the September 2025 targets the Bank has set new ambitious targets, adopting a tiered approach across senior leadership levels. These updated commitments, to be delivered by September 2028 are:
- 50% female representation at ExCo, with a tolerance of +/-5%
- 45% female representation at ExCo-1 (Grade A-C)
- 45% female representation at ExCo-2 (Grade A-E)
These refreshed targets build on the progress made during the 2022-2025 cycle and reflect the Bank’s continued ambition and maturing approach to diversity, equity and inclusion.
As of the January 2025, the Bank currently stands at:
- Women represent around 44.5% of ExCo
- 39.5% at ExCo-1
- 41.9% at ExCo-2
Whilst strong, these figures indicate that further progress is required to meet the September 2028 targets. The Charter continues to play an essential role in shaping the Bank’s broader approach to progressing gender representation within leadership.
Other diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives: our commitments and partnerships
We are proud to partner with the following organisations:
Inclusive Employers
Disability Confident Employer
RNIB Visibility Better Employer
