Women in Finance Charter
Yorkshire Building Society is a signatory to HM Treasury’s Women in Finance Charter
What is it?
The Women in Finance Charter is a pledge for gender equality across financial services from HM Treasury. It is a commitment to work together, across our industry and with Government, to build a more balanced and fairer financial services industry.
Organisations who have signed the Charter have made a clear commitment to improve diversity, ensure that women are able to progress into senior roles, set targets to support this work and regularly report on their progress.
We are pleased to have met our Charter target and are on track to maintain gender balance across all senior management roles, with a minimum of 45% of either gender by 2030.
Our ambition (target)
When we signed up to the Charter in 2018, we had 43.1% female representation in senior management roles, and our target was to achieve gender balance across all senior management roles, with a minimum of 40% of either gender by 2023.
As of September 2025 we have 49.8% female representation in senior management, improved from 48.4% in September 2024. However we know there’s still more to do to ensure long-lasting change and we’ll continue to work on achieving gender balance across all our senior management colleagues by 2030.
Our Progress on Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) at YBS
Our vision to be a leading organisation that embraces diversity, champions equity and creates an inclusive environment where all individuals regardless of their background or identity feel valued, empowered and supported. During 2025 we’ve achieved a number of successes that support us with achieving this.
Menopause
In 2022, we signed the Menopause Workplace Pledge to underline our commitment to supporting our colleagues during the menopause. Following the successful introduction of our Menopause Champions, we made Menopause training available for all colleagues and people leaders, as well as refreshing our Menopause miniguide.
Being an ally is a role that we all play at YBS, our Menopause miniguide and training supports our people leaders to better support their teams’, but they’re also useful tools for all colleagues to support their peers at work or friends and family members with the menopause.
The cafes have continued to be popular with colleagues, providing a safe space for them to meet, discuss and support those experiencing symptoms of the menopause and perimenopause. And to mark World Menopause Day, the Women’s Network ran a series of events to help colleagues learn more about the menopause, how they can support those experiencing it and breaking down some of the common taboos.
Senior Recruitment
We have continued our focus on hiring women into our senior roles, working with our recruitment partners to source diverse talent and achieve balanced shortlists, with 55.9% of roles filled by women in 2025. This has supported us to have 47.5% of women in Senior Manager roles, 57.7% of women in Director roles and 37.5% of women in roles on our Executive Committee. With 49.8% of senior roles now filled by women, we’ll continue our work to improve this in 2026 but in line with our DEI Ambitions we’ll expand our focus to include other areas of underrepresentation in these roles, for example ethnic minorities and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds.
Board Diversity
Since her appointment in April 2024 as Chair of the Board, Annemarie Durbin has completed recruitment for a number of Non-Executive Director roles, and we now have 66.7% of Board roles filled by women.
For more information about the Women in Finance Charter visit:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/women-in-finance-charter