We’re committed to achieving gender balance at all levels of our organisation and have been working towards this goal for a number of years.

We’re addressing this through our gender action plan, by setting targets and through our pledge to the HMT Women in Finance Charter.


Gender Action Plan

Our gender action plan is designed to improve the attraction, retention and progression of women through abrdn and has actions targeting early, mid and senior career stages.

What we’ve done in 2020-2021:

  • We’ve introduced new gender inclusive recruitment practices such as using diverse shortlists, augmented writing software, returnships and developed strategic partnerships to attract more women to abrdn
  • We’ve conducted gender analysis of our HR employee lifecycle processes
  • We’ve driven greater accountability by providing leaders with increasingly detailed gender data
  • We’ve launched new gender inclusive policies including market leading gender equal Parent Leave offering
  • We’ve addressed gender related barriers to career progress including building inclusive leadership capability and creating safe spaces to share and learn
  • We’ve provided a practical support framework through our employee network for gender, ‘Balance’
  • We’ve introduced development offerings for women at early, mid and senior career stages

which has resulted in:

  • Achievement of our 2020 gender targets for Board and senior leadership (both targets 33%)
  • Representation of women in graduate intake (UK) increased from 33% (2020) to 45% (2021)
  • Representation of women in UK workforce increased from 45% (2020) to 46% (2021)
  • Reduction in our mean gender pay and bonus gaps and median gender pay and bonus gaps (see UK Gender Pay Gap Report)
  • Equileap naming us as a ‘global leader of employer sponsored parental leave provisions’ and inclusion in Bloomberg Gender Equality Index (every year since 2018)
  • Highest percentage of female fund managers in companies of our size (Citywire 2021)

Read more about our diversity targets for 2025, or view our Diversity and Inclusion Report.

HMT Women in Finance Charter

Our company was among the first signatories to the HM Treasury Women in Finance Charter in 2016, demonstrating our commitment to inclusion and diversity and pledging to increase gender balance in our senior management populations and across our industry.

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Gender pay gap

We report our UK gender pay gap each year.  The gender pay gap is the difference in the average pay of men and women and a measurable indicator of gender equality in an organisation.

In 2021 our mean gender pay gap, median gender pay gap and bonus gaps all reduced compared to the previous year. Our mean gender bonus gap reduced by 8.6% to 57.3% and our mean gender pay gap reduced by 1.2% to 33.3%.   Our pay and bonus gaps are reducing each year but we are determined to work even harder on our gender actions in order to create change within abrdn and across the industry.  For this reason, we committed to a collective target through our partnership with the Diversity Project to reduce our industry gender pay gap by 50% by 2030.

Read more about our gender pay and bonus gaps for 2021.

Balancing gender representation is key to creating an inclusive culture, and has the potential to improve company profitability by 25%[i] and boost the global economy by $12 trillion[ii]. COVID-19 continues to disproportionately impact women[iii], meaning the need for a gender inclusive workplace, free from systemic bias has never been greater. We remain committed to making sustainable progress on gender equality in our organisation and across our industry.   

More information on our targets and gender inclusion progress can be found within the Diversity and Inclusion Report.

[i] Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 25% more likely to experience above average profitability (Source: ‘Diversity wins’ – 2020 McKinsey and Co).

[ii] $12 trillion could be added to global GDP by 2025 by advancing women’s equality of participation (Source: ‘The Power of Parity’– 2015 McKinsey and Co)

[iii] McKinsey Global Institute – COVID 19 and gender equality: Countering the regressive effects (July 2020).