Gender pay gap report 2023
Each year, employers with 250 or more employees publish their figures comparing men and women’s average pay across the organisation. Today we publish our figures and commit to supporting women.
At Trustmarque, sharing our Gender Pay Gap is part of our commitment to transparency so that we can continue to drive change and address the underlying reasons for the underrepresentation of women in the technology industry and across our organisation.
Why do we have a gender pay gap?
On 5 April 2023, women represented 32% of Trustmarque colleagues, and although this was above the average for the Tech industry in the UK which is 26% (Tech Nation, 2023), we know there is still much more to do.
Unfortunately, our gender pay gap had increased by 2.7% between 2022 and 2023. This is because we saw a lot of changes in our leadership teams in 2022, where we hired more men than women into senior roles, which was and still is representative of the current gender mix in the industry. This has happened alongside the hiring of more women into lower paid roles, and this imbalance of women across the organisation can be seen in our 2023 pay quartiles and has slightly widened our gender pay gap.
(Mean pay gap: is calculated by comparing the average pay received by men and the average pay received by women.) Simon Williams, Trustmarque Group’s Chief Executive, commented:
“Our mission is to make Trustmarque a great place to work for women, this year and for many more to come. As a society we already have a long way to go to address inequality in the workplace, I look forward to my daughter working in an industry with full equality. The imbalance of women across the organisation can be seen in our 2023 pay quartiles. But since then, we have launched policies and initiatives to address this, and we are starting to see positive results. Over the last 6 months we have recruited and promoted significant number of senior women who can be role models across the workforce.”
Understanding what needs to change
We do recognise that there is still much more to do to reduce the gender pay gap across the technology industry and at Trustmarque. This year, we have taken the steps below to improve the diversity of our team, including launching our DEI Network, Encircle, addressing pay parity in our annual pay review and launching management training, plus many more initiatives. Marsha Waugh Lewis, Trustmarque’s Chief People Officer, commented:
“As a woman in leadership, I am motivated to foster the change required to increase the representation of women at senior levels which will help us reduce our pay gap over time. With more women in senior positions now versus April 2023, and an above average representation of women for the IT industry, we have a great opportunity at Trustmarque. We will continue to proactively grow and nurture our talent through leadership and mentoring schemes and working with our DEI network to support women’s careers, build confidence and overcome barriers.”
Life at Trustmarque for women
Through these initiatives we have achieved more diversity in our senior roles, as of April 2023 women represented 32% of our senior roles, whereas in March 2024 they now represent 36%. We’ve spoken to women across the organisation to hear about their experiences and areas of improvement:
“When I started working for Trustmarque in 2017, I was a part time employee which at the time was relatively difficult to find in the finance world. Although I worked part time and took some maternity leave I feel encouraged to progress and have been promoted to a senior finance role. I now work full time but on a flexible contract allowing me to fulfil my contractual hours within 4 working days which is so important for my family life balance and something I rarely see offered anywhere else. Working from home 100% of the time is a huge benefit as I am only ever 5 minutes away from my children’s school/nursery and I do not waste hours a week on a commute. Whilst there are many reasons I work for Trustmarque, the flexibility and working from home is one of the main factors for me.”
Natalie Allsop, Head of FP&A
“I started at Trustmarque in 2022 after I had finished University and wasn’t necessarily looking for a role in Sales or technology, but I applied for the BDAM role at Trustmarque. After joining the London BDAM team, I was given the training and development to succeed in the role. In the Sales team, everyone here has been extremely supportive of my development, and I have recently progressed into an account manager role in Healthcare. I think it’s important that Trustmarque continues to concentrate on getting women through the door, as the company is so welcoming, especially now we are becoming more inclusive through raising awareness about topics like the menopause and fertility treatment. These things weren’t talked about when I first joined.”
Phoebe Newstead, Account Manager, Healthcare
“I have been at Trustmarque for 9 months, and in that time I have seen a lot of women leaders join the business which is great to see. I think more work needs to be done to improve the internal progression of women at Trustmarque, which is why I’m really excited to see our upcoming initiatives like mentoring, a new promotion process and the management development programmes. I think that these initiatives will empower women and give them the tools they need to progress.”
Nikki Mathews, Sales Manager
Our declaration
We confirm that our data has been calculated according to the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Regulations 2017) and has been produced by the Payroll team and approved by Chief Executive Officer, Simon Williams.
